Winning the war - Part V: The military role

At this stage, where one is addressing the role of the military in defeating an ongoing insurgency, it is helpful to define what is meant by an insurgency. This is best done by contrasting it with conventional warfare.

In the latter case, one can look at the northern European theatre in World War II. There, in planning and executing the liberation of occupied territories and the defeat of Nazi Germany, the objectives of the campaign – in broad terms – was fairly straightforward. It was to engage and defeat a clearly defined – and identifiable – enemy, rolling forward progressively taking possession of enemy-held territory and occupying it. The ultimate objective was to bring down the German government, precipitating the surrender of all hostile forces.

Following cessation of hostilities, there then followed a period of military governance, the primary aim of which was no more than maintaining law and order, pending a gradual transition to civilian authorities who were then engaged in economic and political construction. As a final stage, power was handed back to newly constituted civil government of the defeated nation.

In an insurgency, the contrast could not be more extreme. The "invading" forces are not at war with the government of the nation in the territory they occupy – they are acting in support of it. There is no clearly defined enemy and there is no demarcation between hostile and friendly territory. There is no front line and, crucially, there is no formal – or any - cessation of hostilities.

Instead, while the war continues, the processes which in conventional warfare take place after the hostilities have ended have to be carried out simultaneously. In other words, there is no neat division between "winning the war" and "winning the peace" – the two have to go hand in hand. Furthermore, each aspect depends on the other, in a continuous reinforcing loop.

It is here, perhaps, that the perception and strategies in Afghanistan are wrong. Much of the thinking, it seems, is still compartmentalised along the lines of conventional warfare, with the same division of labour as between the military and the civilian agencies. First, the military goes in to occupy an area. It repossesses it from the "enemy" and then imposes "security", allowing the "reconstruction" teams, the aid agencies and the civil authorities to do their work.

However, such a strategy is not wholly wrong. The picture of the insurgency painted is too simplistic. There are, in fact, two "insurgencies". One is, in effect, an invasion by external forces, the Al Qaeda and other factions, based in Pakistan and elsewhere – largely foreign fighters. Dealing with them in some ways approximates the conventional war model and conventional means can be successful.

On the other hand, there is the domestic insurgency – albeit reinforced or aided by external agencies. In this case, the "enemy" is the population of the area occupied. Killing the enemy – or forcing its "surrender" under such circumstances, is not an option. There is no obvious – or any - way of winning a military battle and the normal metrics of conventional warfare simply do not apply.

In this environment, it is readily and constantly acknowledged that there is no military solution. Received wisdom is that the military can only "hold the ring" giving space and time for a political solution to evolve.

However, within the context of the discussion and analysis in the preceding parts, this wisdom may not hold up. The underlying assumption in the standard model is that the "invading" force – in the case of Helmand, largely British forces aided by the ANA – acts as the "liberator", opening the way for the writ of central government and the "rule of law" – and all the benefits that supposedly accrue from this transition.

If, as we suggest, though, the transition brings not benefits, but insecurity and economic harm – to a significant proportion of the population – then the forces which see themselves as "liberators" will be regarded very differently by those whom they are supposedly liberating. Their very act of liberation makes them the enemy.

The continued presence of the occupying forces then makes them targets, the eventual aim of the population being to drive out their foe. Even if the bulk of the population does not actively participate in the insurgency, it will not support the government forces and those whom they see acting as their agents. They thus provide Mao's classic "sea" in which the foreign and local ideologues - the "fish" – can operate.

The response of the occupying forces then creates further instability and reduces any such "benefits" as may have accrued – such as new roads, irrigation schemes, etc. - thus reinforcing the perception that they are the "enemy" – a classic example of negative feedback.

To suggest that there is a different way of doing things, however, verges on arrogance. In many ways, the process of transition is bound to be painful and disturbance is unavoidable. The Afghanis, whether they like it or not, are being presented with a situation that is going to get worse before it gets better.

The central government, backed by the coalition forces and their governments are holding out the prospect of gradual improvement, and are thus inviting participation in what they present as a joint venture. Unfortunately, the population – or some elements of it – may see developments in a different light, almost in terms of "things are going to get worse … before they get even worse".

Putting this altogether, it seems that the essential need for the successful prosecution of this counter-insurgency campaign is to address the negative feedback loop. Populations which are brought within the remit of the central authority must deduce – from their own experiences – that their change in status is largely beneficial. In specific terms, individuals and communities must gain in prosperity, from which then improvements in standards of living then accrue. Currently, for large sections of the population, this is not the case.

The difficulty for the military, of course, is that the measures needed to bring this about do not lie within their immediate control. They can only work within the political framework dictated by the central (host nation) government, as influenced by the governments of the coalition forces and donor nations.

That said, the military do themselves have enormous influence. They can point out to their governments the conditions which must prevail for them to succeed, and also make it clear that, without those conditions in place, they cannot succeed.

To an extent, therefore, they can force policy. Then, by working within a policy framework which they themselves have assisted in developing, they can direct their energies to making it work. In other words, the military need to become, if you like, the "enforcers" and "facilitators" of national policies, not merely the "holders of the ring", a benign but essentially detached force that regards the civilian administration as something separate, outside their scope.

In terms, then, what policy does the military need, to set the framework in which they can successfully operate?

Here, we are almost back where we started. Above all else, Afghanistan is a "rural" country in that by far its most important industry is agriculture, an industry which employs directly and indirectly the vast bulk of its workforce and sustains easily 90 percent of the population. The politics of Afghanistan, therefore, are the politics of agriculture. Fix the agriculture, and you fix the nation.

Looking at this from both a macro-economic scale, and from the perspective of Helmand province, the pressing need is to rejoin the province to the rest of the country, allowing it to function as an integral part of the national – and through that – the international market.

Staying with this for the moment – we will look at other issues later – several tasks immediately spring to mind. The first is "communications", by which is meant roads. The case for a major road-building programme is made superbly by David Kitchen in a long piece in Small Wars Journal, who points out the strategic, tactical, political and economic benefits of such a programme.

The points have already been well-taken by both the Kabul government and development agencies. In April 2008, a contract was signed for a $100 million highway project in Afghanistan "intended to dramatically reduce travel time from Kabul to border areas near Pakistan's volatile tribal region of North Waziristan".

This is a 60-mile stretch of road which will link the provinces of Khost and Paktia to Afghanistan's "ring road," which will eventually circle the country. Crucially, one of the primary justifications for this project is its economic impact. The road is intended to reduce travel time between Kabul and the Khost by four hours, making it much easier for agricultural produce from the border areas to be transported elsewhere in the country.

Nor is this an isolated project. Since Nato involvement in Afghanistan began, over 2,500 miles of roads have been completed and, in the Helmand province, a start has been made on a major Gershk-Sangin-Kajaki road-building project, a 55-mile road to the strategic Kajaki dam which itself is being redeveloped to bring electricity to 1.7 million people in southern Afghanistan.

Although the bulk of these projects are not directly financed by the UK, the lesson has not been lost on the British. After the recapture of Musa Qala last December, one of the priorities has been the town's road building programme.

Nevertheless, we do not get any sense at all that road building is by any means amongst the first priorities of the British government or its military – or indeed that road building is a military function. As a small indicator, we see the disposal by the MoD of unused armoured wheeled tractors, yet these would be a valuable asset for use in road building (and other construction tasks) in hostile areas.

The point here is that there seems to be the compartmentalisation – or separation of functions - of which we complained earlier. The military seem to regard their role as to bring security to an area, creating the conditions whereby civilian agencies can move in and attend to "reconstruction" tasks. Unlike the Americans (and Canadians), they do not seem treat road-building as a counter-insurgency tactic in its own right.

Yet, pace David Kitchen (above), the driving of a road (or improvements thereto) through a contested area is something which the insurgents cannot afford to ignore. It creates a "target" against which they are forced to intervene, giving the military an opportunity to defeat them in detail. After all, one of the major problems in counterinsurgency warfare is bringing the enemy to battle on your terms, and such works create precisely that opportunity.

Furthermore, not only is the enemy drawn out on terms set by the counterinsurgency forces – distracting them and diluting their resources and thereby weakening the efforts on other targets – there is a better chance of forcing combat in uninhabited or sparsely populated areas. This, on the one hand, reduces the potential for collateral damage and the ill-will that causes. On the other, it presents the military as defending an asset valuable to the community – action more likely to meet with approval than taking over an occupied village in order to provoke enemy action.

For our Army, therefore, we need something akin to the US Army's combat engineers, equipped specifically for road building and in sufficient numbers to undertake major works and provide their own routine security.

Needless to say, reliance just on a road-building strategy will not win a counterinsurgency campaign and nor, on its own, will it achieve the economic aim of connecting farmers to their markets. As Ahmad Zia Massoud, first vice-president of Afghanistan once, rather sourly put it, "Millions of pounds have been committed in provinces including Helmand for irrigation projects and road-building to help farmers get their produce to market. But for now this has simply made it easier for them to grow and transport opium."

Much, much more needs to be done, other diverse and important activities in which the military needs to be involved, some in a leading role, others on the periphery. We will look at more of these in the next part.

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Winning the war - Part VI: Fighting the peace

Developing the themes discussed in preceding parts, we have come to the conclusion that the key role of the military should not be defined in terms of "fighting the war" but "fighting the peace". There should be no artificial (or any) division between classic warfighting and associated activities (such as patrolling) and development (and/or "reconstruction"). In dealing with the Afghan insurgency, the two are indivisible parts of the same strategy.

In fact, we go further. Development activities should be the military priority – the only priority - driving all the activities in theatre – but particularly that directed at facilitating or promoting economic activity.

The first of those priorities, we asserted, should be road-building – for the well-founded strategic, political and economic reasons set out by David Kitchen. Crucially, in the economic context, roads allow produce to be pulled into the marketplace, as opposed to production incentives and support, which push product into a system that cannot cope with it, creating price distortions which, all too often, perpetuate the poverty and dependency which the aid system is supposed to overcome.

The effect of good communications and market access is demonstrated vividly by a Foreign and Commonwealth Office report, addressing the failure of the opium eradication programme in Helmand where, despite massive expenditure and local incentives, poppy production had increased.

In so doing, the report notes that the district of Lashkar Gah in northern Helmand – serving the provincial capital where there happens to be situated a large British Army base – was free from opium poppy cultivation. Instead, the district enjoyed some of the most diverse cropping patterns in the region, with extensive cultivation of high value crops such as water melon, tomato, cucumber and onion.

Later in the report, it then goes on to note, in respect of the more northern areas of Afghanistan:

In the districts nearest the provincial centre, Baghlan and Pul e Khumri, high-value vegetable production has the potential to generate higher returns than opium poppy cultivation. There, the asphalt road has brought access to markets in Kabul and Mazar, stimulating vegetable production.

The effect of poor communications is amply illustrated by the fate of the Hazaras - recounted by the National Geographic. They are the inhabitants of Hazarajat - an isolated region in Afghanistan's central highlands to the east and north of Kabul – and despite accounting for up to one-fifth of Afghanistan's population, promises by the government and international donors to pave the roads from Kabul to Bamian and Bamian to Yakawlang have not been kept.

Most of the roads in the region are still glorified mule tracks and, even in the best of weather, farmers cannot get crops to market. Cited by National Geographic is Chris Eaton, CEO of the Aga Khan Foundation's Afghanistan office, who says: "We tried taking melons and peaches to Kabul, and it was juice by the time we got there."

The case for more and better roads, therefore, is unassailable, yet the progress of the road-building programme is and has been disappointingly slow – as evidenced by the experience of the Hazaras. In part, this is due to shortage of financing, but only in part. Some of that problem is more a reflection of the way aid is allocated. For instance, some £130 million has been allocated to (ineffective) opium eradication programmes. That same amount of money directed at road-building could hardly have less effect in terms of reducing poppy production and would leave something tangible to show for the expenditure.

In the FCO report, there is additional intelligence offered, to the effect that, in areas where alternative cultivation thrives, "vegetable traders are mimicking many of the advantages of the opium trade." They are offering cash advances to farmers and purchasing crops at the farm gate, thus absorbing transportation and transaction costs. This suggests that, where a market and good communications exist, traders themselves can secure their own sources of supply, without the intervention of aid or other agencies.

On terms of the road-building programme though, much of the delay – certainly in areas under Taleban control, or where insurgency activity is recorded – is attributed to lack of security. Therein lies the central problem to which we have alluded. The civilian aid and reconstruction programme cannot operate in insecure areas, while the military is too busy rushing off to fight its own war and does not have the resource to provide security for all the development activities.

It is this that makes the case for "self defending" military reconstruction programme – as with the US combat engineers who can undertake civil engineering programmes such as road-building, while being able to take on the insurgents should the need arise. Alternatively, there is perhaps a role for "security consultants" to provide protection, although these can be extremely expensive and, on occasions, unreliable.

Nevertheless, provision of the entire resource from within the Army – which would be expected to be the lead Service – would also be costly and could hardly relieve the "overstretch" about which we hear voluble complaints – although other coalition forces allocate substantial resources to construction tasks. However, the military effort is augmented by units of the ANA, which are both trained and "mentored" by coalition forces.

The Afghan formations include combat engineers trained by the Canadians and the United States. And there are also examples of the military setting up and controlling projects, using locally recruited labour (see page 19).

Sensibly devised, a change of strategic direction should not impose an excessive burden and the feelgood factor of military contributions to engineering works is of significant value (see page 7 and 12).

Moving on, there is an issue allied to any road-building programme, also rehearsed in the FCO report. This retails how a bus in Helmand was stopped by "bandits" and passengers were relieved of their cash, watches and mobiles. Workers have been shot at in a location when they failed to stop at a police check post to pay "tax" and, in other cases, mobility has been restricted by Taleban incursions and general "insecurity".

Even where there is no Taleban activity, the police forces themselves can be a considerable problem. The incidence of checkpoints and the imposition of "taxes" on cars and trucks by the Afghan National Police is a common complaint. It is reported that there have been as many as 40 checkpoints between Herat and Kandahar city, each charging trucks up to $10 for safe passage.

Where needed, therefore – at least in the interim, until the police issue can be resolved - is a system of convoys with armed military escorts for commercial vehicle collecting from farms, backed by the sophisticated resources of the military, such as UAVs and reconnaissance aircraft.

Ostensibly, the bulk of the escorts could be provided by the ANA, supervised or "assisted" by coalition force mentors who will attend, in effect, to ensure that the escorts themselves do not double as "tax" collectors or bandits, or collude with those who have nefarious intentions.

In terms of implications for military equipment, one could expect some of these convoys to become targets, open to direct attacks, mines, IEDs and even suicide bombers. This places a high premium on the availability of mine resistant and ambush protected (MRAP) vehicles. It also demands dedicated route clearance teams to minimise danger to road-bound traffic.

Equally, convoy duties have implications for the military formations employed. Typically, infantry are used for this role, which imposes a considerable burden on already stretched units, but it also represents a misuse of this specialist resource. In US practice, it is not uncommon to employ dedicated units of military police, who are specifically trained and equipped for convoy escort duties, thereby relieving pressure on infantry units.

So far, then, we have identified to specific roles for the military, related directly to economic reconstruction. To look for further roles, we must go upstream in the agricultural marketing chain to see where intervention can confer added value.

Here, there is good evidence that there is a serious shortage of suitable bulk storage – especially for wheat but there is also a need for cold stores for vegetables and fruit. In terms of wheat marketing, this is apparent in the substantial seasonal fluctuations in the price of grain, with prices at their lowest around harvest time, when supplies are plentiful, and higher towards the end of winter and in the spring before the new crops are harvested.

So acute is this shortage in some districts in Helmand, that grain is exported to neighbouring Pakistan – where government subsidised storage is available – only to be returned later in the season, attracting a premium price which is borne by the consumer without conferring any benefits to the original producers.

Clearly, a network of storage centres – linked, of course, to a good road system – is an urgent priority. That much is well recognised by aid and government agencies, who are well aware of the need. The provision of such storage is a key objective of the multi-agency Rebuilding Agricultural Markets in Afghanistan Program (RAMP), which is already devoting much resource to increasing capacity.

Once again, though, an important obstacle is lack of security. The Taleban is well aware of the economic significance of such centres and could be expected – as indeed they have – to interfere with attempts to build such facilities and, when they are built, they become prime targets.

Given the vital economic role these facilities play (which can also house government crop laboratories, advisory centres, plus seed processing and storage units) that creating the security environment needed for their establishment, preventing interference while they are being constructed, and then providing ongoing security, must be high on the list of military priorities.

That said, it also must be recognised that a huge amount has been done already, some of which is recorded here and, for example, here (see also pic, above left - a rebuilt bridge). Nothing of that progress is allowed for in the analyses of Parris and Jenkins, with which we started this post. Viewed through their pessimistic lenses, the impression is of loss, trauma and despair.

Thus, in some respects – as always – the higher priority is promoting more and better publicity about what is being achieved, confronting the naysayers who would have us quit before the job has been done. Nevertheless, one does not get the sense that just the three issues discussed in this part are British military priorities – and there are more we would wish to put on the table. However, in the next part, we have to interrupt this exploration, to look at once again at the wider issues.

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Winning the war – Part VII: The only priority?

As one researches further into this issue, in what has become a journey of discovery, one meets the constant refrain from diverse sources that, "there is no military solution".

Whimsically, however, we could find ourselves disagreeing. The military - for the moment at least – should suspend their battle against the Taleban and other "anti-government elements". Instead, they should turn their guns on the ranks of foreign NGO personnel, government aid agencies and other "hangers on", and drive them out of the country. If necessary, they should shoot some of them, pour encourager les autres to expedite their departure. That alone would do probably more to promote the cause of peace, and the prosperity of the Afghani people than other activity one could possibly imagine.

More particularly, one would send a large military detachment to Brussels where they would be tasked, selectively – or indiscriminately, it matters not – to slaughter EU commission officials responsible for formulating trade policy. When they have finished there, they could, with advantage, turn their attentions to the US Congress.

Unfortunately, such diversions – while undoubtedly entertaining – would be unlikely to gain approval. In any event – given the complexity of modern government and the labyrinthine diffusion of responsibility – they probably would not work.

However, while the sentiment is whimsical, there is a serious point behind it – illustrated by the chart published at the head of this part. This shows that (legal) Afghani exports, from $1.3 billion in 2003 – modest enough then – have collapsed to a mere $247 million (estimated) for 2008. More authoritative figures show that exports as a proportion of GDP have declined from 42.7 percent in 2003 to 25.6 percent in 2006, confirming the trend shown in the graph.

As far as the European Union goes, one sees great enthusiasm for insisting on a "broad-based, gender-sensitive, multi-ethnic and fully representative government", when it comes to trade agreements, one sees the damning words, "There are as yet no sectoral agreements (trade …) between the EU and Afghanistan." As regards trade volumes, one then sees:

Afghanistan is entitled to benefits under the General System of Preferences (GSP) and the Everything But Arms Initiative (EBA). However, in spite of this favourable treatment, trade volume from Afghanistan to the EU has remained limited, actual trade remains minimal: EU imports from Afghanistan in 2005 were €26 million and exports were €321 million.

Afghanistan is entitled to benefits under the Everything But Arms Initiative (EBA) of the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP). Trade between the EU and Afghanistan has almost tripled between 2002 and 2006 but overall remains small. EU imports from Afghanistan increased from €19 million in 2002 to €36 million in 2006. Exports during that period increased from €133 million to €418 million. Whilst the EU is Afghanistan's second most important trading partner after Pakistan, Afghanistan ranks only 129th as regards the EU's major trading partners.

These broad figures, though, conceal an even more dire position when it comes to agriculture. Reference the chart (illustrated right), we can see that in 2006 – the latest official figures available, the EU 25 imported a mere €23 million-worth of agricultural products from Afghanistan, yet exported €64 million-worth to the country, leaving it with a balance of trade deficit of €41 million.

Now, if this seems to be digressing from the military campaign, bear with me. We turn to Barnett R. Rubin who is Director of Studies and Senior Fellow at the Center on International Cooperation (CIC) of New York University, where he directs the Afghanistan Reconstruction Program. Having made a clear link between the counter-narcotics programme and the continuation of the insurgency – the one fuelling the other – he argues in his own blog that there is no military or even law enforcement solution to the drug economy in Afghanistan. He then writes:

This is the result on the ground of a one-dimensional military policy. All we hear is, not enough troops, send more troops. Then you send in troops with no capacity for assistance, no capacity for development, no capacity for aid, no capacity for governance, and you get a lot of head scratching. Of course now there is nothing they can do. Because they think it is a military problem, they send in the Marines during the fighting season, which is also the harvest season. Why didn't they send them in during the planting season with development aid? Because they don't know about planting and harvesting, or at least they have no idea how to integrate these very basic political and economic considerations into their planning.

If they attack the farmers of course they will lose control of the area. They should try to co-opt as many of the local small traffickers as possible to keep them from selling to the Taliban (believe me, the local administration knows who they are) and then launch a big aid program for next year.

After all this time, they still have no idea what they are doing.

In a comprehensive report, he then states:

Alternative development for counter-narcotics must start from macroeconomic plans to create employment by linking Afghanistan to licit international markets, especially through rural industries based on agricultural products.

There we have it: the theme we have addressed in previous parts of this dissertation – the way to salvation is through international trade. Although the Lashkar Gah "miracle" worked when good access to a local market allowed farmers to diversify into higher value produce – leading to an abrupt halt in poppy cultivation – in many areas, this equation does not work. The problem is, amongst other things, that the local populations lack the purchasing power to buy more expensive products. In order to grow them and then to gain the economic benefits from them, farmers must have access to export markets. Europe, with its high purchasing power, is an obvious outlet, but the trade, as we have seen, is minuscule.

Returning to Rubin's report, we then find that the original cash crop produced in the irrigated areas of Helmand, before the Soviet invasion, when Afghanistan had a healthy export trade – was cotton (pictured).

But, we are told, that crop is not competitive with opium poppy as long as US and European Union producers drive down the price by dumping subsidised cotton on the international market. And, although estimates of the price impact of these subsidies vary, Rubin notes that total US cotton subsidies total over $3 billion yearly, more than total US development aid to Afghanistan.

Even then, if the US and EU subsidies cannot be eliminated due to pressure from domestic political constituencies, there is an alternative. Subsidies could still be provided in Afghanistan. However, under pressure from the World Bank and others, the Afghan government is required to adopt the very "free market" principles which its benefactors reject. Therefore, Helmand farmers who have asked for government cotton subsidies as an incentive to shift from poppy to cotton, have been told they do not qualify for exemptions from the discipline of the "free" market.

Still, there is another alternative. Even if cotton alone is not competitive, it has been suggested that textile and garment production would be competitive. Rubin writes that establishing textile quotas for Afghanistan in major markets and investing in simple garment factories in Afghan cotton-producing areas could increase employment. The appeal of a certified "Made in Afghanistan" (or "Made in Afghanistan by Afghan women") label could offset the increased costs of production and transport. Similar opportunities exist with carpet production (pictured). Yet, progress there has been none.

Then, should subsidies prove impractical under Afghan conditions, Rubin adds, another approach is to expand local procurement by the international community in Afghanistan combined with attempts to encourage contract growing of high value horticulture. Again, progress there has been none.

And it gets worse. To soak up labour displaced by the transition from opium production to the licit economy, there is a desperate need to create rural industries (needed as well to halt the population drift into the cities), but – in order to thrive, these must be linked to regional and global markets with assured access to those markets.

Still, it gets worse. The US State Department is soliciting proposals under their new Economic Empowerment in Strategic Regions (EESR) programme to provide alternative income generation for farmers in south western Afghanistan through production and processing of agricultural fibres, oilseeds, and feed products.

But USAID reportedly refuses to fund such initiatives on the grounds that they conflict with the Bumpers Amendment. "Until there is an official declaration of Administration policy regarding the amendment, those qualified to submit proposals will be reluctant to do so," Rubin writes.

Explained here, the Bumpers Amendment was a measure passed by the US Congress in May 1986 controlling the distribution of foreign aid by US authorities. It stipulates that "none of the funds to be appropriated … may be available for any testing or breeding, feasibility study, variety improvement or introduction, consultancy, publication, or training in connection with the growth or production in a foreign country for export if such export would compete in world markets with a similar commodity grown or produced in the United States."

Nor is this by any means an academic issue. Reported in February 2008 was the fate of two Afghan-American brothers, Yosuf and Abdul Mir, with a textiles factory in Kandahar.

In 2005, they developed a plan to renovate the factory, on the basis that it could give opium farmers an incentive switch to growing cotton. Arguing that they could provide as many as 18,000 jobs, as well as a guaranteed cotton and wool market for local farmers, they won the support of the Afghan government and got more than 2,000 farmers to sign pledges agreeing to switch from opium to cotton.

Then the put their case to USAID officials for a $1.5 million grant for their project, under the alternative livelihoods programme, and got what they believed was a tentative agreement in 2006 from Chemonics International, a Washington-based company that administered USAID projects in Afghanistan.

A year later though, in June 2007, Chemonics rejected the project without explanation. A letter in October from the head of the State Department's Office of Afghanistan, John Fox, then said the refusal was prompted by a congressional ban on funding projects that would compete with US farmers. That was the Bumpers Amendment in practice.

All of a sudden, the carefully structured argument about the military making development activities their priority – the only priority – come screeching to a halt as they crash into the political realities of government aid and protectionism. Yet, in Part III, we asserted that "any military activity must be closely integrated with, and responsive to, a cocktail of high policy, other agency activities and government actions."

By the same token, "high policy, other agency activities and government actions" must be closely integrated with, and responsive to military activities and needs. What we are learning from this journey of discovery is that they are not. In fact, so far do they deviate from what is absolutely necessary, the indications are that, whatever they do – short of the action proposed at the beginning of this post - the military are unlikely to succeed.

We are going to have to go away and think about this … it does not look good.

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Winning the war - Part VIII: Hearts and mines

Captain Andrew Brosnan, commander of Alpha Company, 25th US Army Infantry Division, was a frustrated man. Having established his force of 140 soldiers in "firebase Ananconda" on the fringes of Uruzgan town – 100 miles north east of Kandahar – he gathered hundreds of local men in a circle around him.

Capt Brosnan then delivered a stern message. He had come to the townspeople "in friendship", he said, and outlined Alpha Company's development projects. He also appealed for information about the Taliban attacks. Despite that, he admonished, "not one person here has helped me."

Moments later, a US jet cracked across the sky in a choreographed show of force. "Together we can build a better Afghanistan," he concluded. The townsmen, listening carefully as they hunkered under the morning sun, stood up and left.

This is an account offered by The Guardian in September 2004, demonstrating, as its headline put it, "Frustrated US forces fail to win hearts and minds." Troops hunting Taleban, ran the strap, "run into wall of silence."

After a quiet welcome, the base had come under sustained attack. Suspected Taleban had fired rocket-propelled grenades at the camp three times, though most of them exploded off the perimeter wall, and planted at least ten roadside bombs designed to destroy passing US convoys.

Although the attacks had caused no serious injuries, they had infuriated Capt Brosnan. His troops, he said, had built schools, dug wells and erected latrines in the town. His medics had treated the sick and called in helicopter evacuations for patients in mortal danger. Yet, he was frustrated by "a wall of silence" about the attacks.

Even though some of the attacks had been launched from the busy town bazaar, nobody, it seemed, knew anything. "They wave, they smile. But someone out there knows what's going on - and they're not saying anything," said Specialist Melvin Krambule, a gunner atop an armour-plated Humvee.

Nearly three years later, we get a British perspective from The Daily Telegraph, which reported that, "Afghan hearts and minds refuse to be won". Troops fighting in Afghanistan, we were told, "are meeting resistance not only from the Taliban, but from the people they are there to support."

The report narrates the experience of Col Simon Marr, of the 1st Bn Fusiliers, leading a "senior Allied delegation" on a hearts-and-minds mission to the town of Ghowrak in Kandahar. He is told by the headman, Haji Pasha, "You do not need to be here in town … With your soldiers standing looking over us, watching our women and driving their vehicles destroying our land. Go into the hills to find the Taliban, don't disturb us."

Far from being enticed into repudiating the Taliban, the report adds, elders lined up to complain about the foreign troops in their midst and, more bitterly, the lack of assistance from the Afghan government. "Why are we not with you?" asks another villager rhetorically. "Why are we not thanking you for our security? Why should we do anything at all for our government when it does nothing to help us? Please do something for us but do it in Kandahar to make our government give to us not to themselves."

Militarily, control of Ghowrak is vital. It is a strategic outpost on the Hashingar Pass, a Taleban corridor to Helmand province. Fighters crossing smuggling routes travel unchallenged through Kandahar to strongholds from Helmand to Pakistan. Without troops on the ground, the military cannot hope to disrupt the Taleban's supply lines, but without the support of the local population, they cannot prevail.

Now fast forward to June 2008 and Time magazine reports how the Taleban took away the school-books, the flour and cooking oil from Kajaki Olya. This is a village on the banks of the Helmand River in southern Afghanistan, a few miles from the strategic Kajaki dam, where works are continuing to bring electricity to 1.7 million Afghans.

But here, the writ of the Taleban prevailed. It warned the farmers of the village not to accept any other gifts from the British troops. As a result, Ghulam Madin, an opium-poppy farmer, begs the soldiers to stop coming through his village. He does not want any more food or cash, "even though his gaunt face and bare feet indicate that he needs both."

"Last time you brought us shoes as gifts, and it made big problems for us. The Taleban came and took them away," he says. "This time if we take the gifts, the Taleban will finish us for sure."

He is speaking to Major Mike Shervington, commander of a company of British troops stationed in the hills above the village. For the past few weeks, the Taliban has been following in his footsteps, stealing by night the gifts his soldiers gave out during the day.

But the villagers cannot or will not fight back. "We are afraid," says Madin. "The Taleban has force. It has power." Shervington, who leads about 200 men, asks, "More than me?" Madin shrugs. "You will come down and fight, and you will win," he concedes. "But you will win only for one hour. Then you will go back to your base. The Taleban will return."

Around the same time, the Commander, Field Army Headquarters Land Command in southern Iraq, was expressing his opinion of developments. This was Lieutenant General Graeme Lamb, who declared that, "Winning hearts and minds" in Western-occupied nations like Iraq and Afghanistan is an impossible goal.

"There will of course be circumstances where we can earn the trust of local people, where we can prevail amongst the national leadership, establish a constructive dialogue with religious authorities, but I doubt we will (be) or maybe ever have been in a position to win their hearts and minds," he said.

"To suggest that good intentions will cross fundamental cultural, social and religious differences and win over a damaged population is at best dangerous and wishful thinking. The image of winning a heart or a mind is almost ridiculous."

Lamb added that the best an occupying army could hope for was the consent of local people, and this required delivering tangible benefits like electricity, water, health, education and security. Among the locals were "some who need us, albeit for a short time, others that will accommodate us, albeit for a short time, and others that will hate us simply for all time".

While some opponents could be brought back from the brink by addressing underlying grievances, others were irreconcilable. "They are simply the architects of chaos. You have to expel them, incarcerate them or kill them."

Warming to his theme, Lamb then held: "I would contend that the (U.S.-led) coalition just being in Iraq presents to a proud and ancient civilisation abject humiliation, visible shame … Every day and in every way we outsiders are seen to be interfering in their affairs - albeit with the best possible interests, and making a difference - but nevertheless foreigners to their culture, their faith, their way of life."

The news agency report at the time noted that Lamb's comments on "hearts and minds" marked a sharp departure from what had become a cliché of counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency, often used by politicians and the media.

And indeed, "hearts and minds" was and still is very much a cliché, attracting the acronym "WHAM" – standing for "winning hearts and minds". This is the driver of much of the military activity in Afghanistan, where Lamb's remarks were just as applicable. Rather than involve itself in longer-term projects (although there have been exceptions) the military focuses on what are known as QIPs – quick impact projects, activities which produce an immediate dividend, supposedly to present a human face to populations in military occupied areas.

Thus, you get Capt Brosnan's schools, wells and latrines, plus food aid and gifts, when what the populations really want is longer term infrastructure projects like roads and electricity.

Worse still, as one recent study pointed out, such aid is implemented largely on the basis of a "charity paradigm", which can be perceived as "patronising, instrumentalist and unsustainable by local populations". The study adds:

Afghan populations are sceptical about military intentions, and are not fooled by simplistic material incentives designed to ‘win hearts and minds’. Crude and unsophisticated methods, such as badly designed and implemented projects to combat Taliban efforts on the non-kinetic front, to ensure force protection or to win support for the Afghan government are not currently helping build credibility or trust.

This study goes on then to advocate the use of civilian aid agencies, arguing that:

Despite force protection being one of the top priorities of commanders and a key factor inherent within the operational planning process, the military cannot establish relationships that put them in touch with the knowledge and experience that can yield in-depth insight into communities and their workings. Efforts such as patrols "engaging" with the population – by exchanging niceties with children, for example, although necessary and palliative for soldiers on the ground, are manifestly not in the same league.

Notwithstanding that the civilian agencies are not delivering the goods either – and in their agricultural aid activities are focusing on "food security" and production improvements rather than marketing, thus exacerbating problems – the point made by Lamb is amply reinforced: the pursuit of a "hearts and minds" strategy is largely valueless.

In a hostile environment, our military struggles for the "hearts" and, in return, they get "mines". The strangest thing is that anyone ever thought it would be different. Yet, we still see arguments for the use of "Snatch" Land Rovers and open topped "WIMIK" Land Rovers – as being more conducive to the "hearts and minds" approach. We expose our troops to greater danger in the hope that the populations will reciprocate. Instead they, or the forces they support, exploit our weakness.

In that context, the watch words should be: "get in, do the job and get out" – minimising our own casualties in the process. We should leave the "nicey nicey" to the local politicians and the Afghan agencies for, if in the unlikely event that a "hearts and minds" strategy ever worked, it would undermine rather than enhance the development of the Kabul government.

This, we will explore in a later part.

COMMENT THREAD

Winning the war - Part IX: Reality check

By the end of this month, less than ten days into our journey, the number of British casualties in Afghanistan has increased to 110, reported as the highest number of British deaths in the land campaign in any one month, since the start of operations in 2002.

Despite that, Gerard Baker of The Times wrote a bullish column telling us to: "Cheer up. We're winning this War on Terror". Covering both the Iraqi and Afghani campaigns, he breathlessly announced that Al-Qaeda and the Taleban were "in retreat", the surge had worked in Iraq and Islamism had been discredited.

Quoting the famous words of Marshal Foch at the Battle of the Marne: "My centre is giving way. My right is in retreat. Situation excellent. I shall attack!", all that was needed, opined Baker was for our political leaders and opinion-formers to display just "a hint of the defiant resilience that carried Marshal Foch to victory".

The problem was, according to Baker, was that "timorous defeatism is on the march." In Britain, setbacks in the Afghan war were greeted as harbingers of inevitable defeat. In America, large swaths of the political class continues to insist Iraq is a lost cause. The consensus in much of the West is that the War on Terror was unwinnable. The answer, therefore, was "confidence".

Concluded Baker: "We are prevailing in this struggle. We know it. And everywhere: in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and among Muslims around the world, the enemy knows it too."

With the analysis so far done on this blog, one was minded of the boy who stood on the burning deck, whence all but he had fled – but not in the strict terms of Hemans's poem. Instead, one recalls the cynical rejoinder, oft quoted but with no acknowledged author: "Obviously, he had no idea what was going on". The comedian Spike Milligan put it more succinctly, parodying those opening lines of the poem by adding the single word: "Twit."

Cutting across the heroism of Hemans's subject, the cynic will argue that that it is easy to be brave when you are unaware of the peril faced. But, more to the point, it is easy to be bullish and optimistic about a situation when you have no clear understanding of what is going on.

It is in that "fog of war" that our earlier commentators operated, Messrs Parris, Jenkins, Harding and Mercer – plus the many others, including this blog author.

We can all look at the bits of the story that either attract us, or reinforce our innate prejudices, and draw whatever conclusions we wish to see. Those who would wish to see us lose Afghanistan can find evidence to support that thesis and those who, for whatever reason, wish to argue that we are prevailing, can find any amount of material to support that view.

Casting the net wider than have most, however, one finds an unusually blunt paper written for the Center for Strategic and International Studies in December 2007, Anthony H Cordesman complained of "an uncertain war with far too few metrics".

Although an American writer, his focus is not entirely on his own country, embracing as he does, "virtually all the Western governments involved" in Afghanistan - as well as NATO/ISAF.

What they have in common, he writes, is that they provide little meaningful data on progress in the conflict in military, political, economic, and ideological terms. There also is little effort to analyse the length of effort required, the ratio of resources available to resources required, and treat the conflict as what is almost certain to be a long war and a long exercise in nation building. He continues:

Part of the problem may come from the fact that so many governments and official bodies are involved, and there is no central authority that provides comprehensive reporting. Most of the official reporting on Afghanistan – whether US, NATO, or allied country - is little more than public relations material. NATO and national web sites provide almost no meaningful "metrics" for measuring progress, and there have been few meaningful government reports.

The United States government, which provides the bulk of the military and financial resources for the war, is a good case example. Unlike Iraq, the US government has never attempted to provide any structured metrics or analysis of the fighting.

The US Department of Defense has largely halted detailed reporting on the war. It has not provided any recent formal reporting on the course of the war. The web site for Operation Enduring Freedom has been replaced by a general heading for Afghanistan that is almost useless in providing meaningful information on the war.

The US State Department provides some data on aid spending, but no meaningful data on either the detailed justification for that aid or measures of effectiveness of aid beyond some data on projects completed as distinguished from the level of requirements met and impact on war fighting. The White House web site is little more than a morass of slogans.

What, in effect, Cordesman is saying is that no one really knows quite what is going on in Afghanistan and, in particular, whether the massive inflow of funds, resources and manpower is have the effect intended.

On the other hand, enough seemed to be known for an ad hoc Afghanistan Study Group, under the aegis of the Center for the Study of the Presidency, to make its own report a month later. And the findings do not make for happy reading. "The mission to stabilise Afghanistan is faltering," it says, then telling us:

Following the rapid successes in toppling the Taleban government, passing a new constitution, and electing a president and parliament, the long road to reconstruction, reconciliation, and institutional development has grown hazardous.

Despite a significant increase in the number of foreign troops and the amount of aid to Afghanistan since 2002, violence, insecurity, and opium production have risen dramatically as Afghan confidence in their government and its international partners falls. The year 2007 has been the deadliest for American and international troops in Afghanistan since US-led coalition forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

As we struggle to build an Afghan National Army and Afghan National Police, suicide attacks against Afghan security forces have also surged.

The most immediate threat to Afghanistan comes from an anti-government insurgency that has grown considerably over the past two years. It has become apparent that the Taleban cannot fight the U.S. and coalition forces head-to-head, and coalition forces have had success in targeting Taleban leadership over the last year, capturing or killing several senior commanders.

Therefore, the Taleban rely on terrorism and ambushes, launching over 140 suicide bombings in 2007, with numerous attacks in the heart of the capital, Kabul. Over 80 Afghan civilians reportedly lost their lives in suicide attacks in September 2007 alone.

The Taleban have been able to infiltrate many areas throughout the country, especially the south and the southeast where the government is weakest, intimidating and coercing the local populations and occasionally holding territory. As a result, the prospect of again losing significant parts of Afghanistan to the forces of Islamic extremists has moved from the improbable to the possible.

This sober analysis, however, was itself not entirely objective – or, at least, without political motivation. Published in the late January of this year, it had in mind the April Nato summit in Bucharest, when the US intended to jolt coalition members into providing more troops and releasing some of the restrictive caveats which reduced the effectiveness of the Nato mission.

In part that was successful but only partly so – with the French committing to send an additional battalion of troops and some agreement that the troops in the more peaceful northern regions of Afghanistan could be used as a "theatre reserve" in the event of serious (but unspecified) problems.

But, if the Afghanistan Study Group was trying to make a point, it was not the only one to take a pessimistic view. In 2006, award-winning journalist Fariba Nawa had written a penetrating report on the reconstruction programme in Afghanistan. In her epilogue, she writes:

Afghans are losing their faith in the development experts whose job is to reconstruct and rebuild their country. While the quality of life for most is modestly improved, they were promised much more. What the people see is a handful of foreign companies setting priorities for reconstruction that make the companies wealthy, yet are sometimes absurdly contrary to what is necessary.

This is against the background of US spending of an estimated $140 billion since 2001 on military spending in Afghanistan, with another $10 billion spent on "reconstruction" (out of a total of $25 billion allocated from all sources).

Meanwhile, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reports that the value of Afghan opium exports in 2007 rose 29 percent over the previous year and was equal to 53 percent of the country's legitimate gross domestic product. A follow-up report issued on 6 February predicted that opium production this year would be at or near 2007 levels.

In addition, the report noted, "another disturbing trend is the steady rise in cannabis cultivation, giving Afghanistan the dubious distinction of being one of the world's biggest suppliers of cannabis in addition to providing over 90 percent of the world's illicit opium." Afghan farmers are diversifying, but not in quite the way intended.

Thus, when Cordesman complained of "an uncertain war with far too few metrics", he could have put it differently. Too many of the "metrics" that are available point in the wrong direction. Baker's "confidence" – with which we started this part – is definitely that of the boy on the deck of the burning ship.

COMMENT THREAD

Winning the war - Part X: Outsourcing the war

Throughout this dissertation runs the central theme that the active "shooting war" and the reconstruction programme are not (or should not be) separate activities but an integral part of the whole, the two dovetailing together and feeding off each other.

We have also made the point that restoration of the agricultural base is the key to success: fix the agriculture and you fix the nation, we wrote. To that extent, military priorities – and all others – should be directed at that endeavour.

In terms of policy, however, the reality was that, at the beginning of the reconstruction programme, agriculture was so low down the pecking order that it was not run directly by the US government – or even the Afghani government. Instead - like many of the reconstruction activities in both Iraq and Afghanistan - it has been subcontracted to a private company under contract. In effect, a vital part of winning the war has been outsourced.

Here, it has to be said that there is no rooted objection to the use of private contractors – they often being more efficient in the provision of services than any government agency. But their effectiveness – and value for money – depends entirely on their working within a sound policy framework, which should thus determine a tightly define (and achievable) contract specification. It then should go without saying that the contract process should be entirely open, with awards based on merit first and then cost, and that there should be good supervision and then proper accountability.

For the redevelopment of Afghani agriculture, the contract was awarded to a company called Chemonics International, Inc. (known more commonly by its short-form: Chemonics), a 3-year cost-plus, fixed-fee contract for $153.4 million under a programme labelled the: Rebuilding Agricultural Markets Program (RAMP). It took effect in July 2003, the first phase of which was to last until June 2006.

From the outset, the strategic objective of RAMP, as defined by the company was:

…to enhance the food security and increase the incomes of Afghanistan’s rural population by a) increasing agricultural productivity and output, and b) increasing incomes by making the linkages between producers, processors and markets more efficient.

Not only does this appear fundamentally sound, the programme structure on paper also look adequate, comprising management, administration and technical assistance; physical infrastructure reconstruction or repair; rural financial services; and agricultural technology and market development. Nor could there be any objection to the overall philosophy (as explained in a company report). It was precisely that which one would expect to see:

The programmatic starting point for increasing marketable value is the final market (demander), not the farmer (supplier). The following sections support the "produce what you can sell" principle by first describing the contractor's accomplishments to date with regards to identifying markets and developing market systems, enhancing processing facilities, and increasing the quality and yield of production – and then briefly explaining RAMP/Chemonics' 2006 planned activities related to these value chain elements.

There was, however, to prove a difference between paper and practice. In March 2006, the Office of the Inspector General published an audit of the programme, giving what amounted to a damning indictment:

USAID/Afghanistan did not properly administer its contract with Chemonics with regards to updated work plans, changed scope of work, and annual evaluations of contractor performance. A contractual relationship between USAID/Afghanistan and Chemonics required both parties to fulfill specific responsibilities in order to manage and implement the contract activities. Furthermore, USAID/Afghanistan's decision to use a contract instrument to implement this program required it to follow the applicable Federal Acquisition Regulation, which it did not do. The reasons why USAID/Afghanistan did not properly administer the contract were because other tasks took priority, and the Mission did not enforce the contract terms with Chemonics. As a result, USAID/Afghanistan's contract administration could result in the inefficient use of U.S. government resources. Additionally, the Mission did not have timely updates on the performance of Chemonics—updates which serve as a relevant, important source of information in responsibility determinations and future contract awards.

Crucial in that condemnation were the words, "The reasons why USAID/Afghanistan did not properly administer the contract were because other tasks took priority …". In effect, the US authorities, having subcontracted the vital task of regenerating the Afghani agricultural system, then took very little interest in the progress of the work. It became, "out of sight, out of mind".

One of Chemonics' more important failures was that it did not meet a target set for 30 September 2005 for rehabilitating the number of kilometers of farm-to-market roads. Originally, it had been tasked to rehabilitating 555 kilometers but by that time had actually completed only 391Km. The reasons cited were: "security and poor subcontractor performance issues" but the cumulative delays meant that the end-of-contract target of rehabilitating 900 Km was no met by 2 July 2006.

More to the point – but not questioned by the Inspector General was the relationship between production orientated and marketing work. While Chemonics had declared that the "starting point" for its programme was the final market and not the farmer, in the contract period it has spent $12,207,587 on "combined contracts" for canal rehabilitation and farm to market roads, $20,476,970 on rehabilitation of canals and $3,800,759 on rehabilitating roads.

The point, of course, is that the canals, as part of the crop irrigation system, were devoted to increasing production, whereas the roads were the related to improving marketing. Because of the combined contracts, the exact proportion spent on each type of project cannot be estimated but, despite that, it is clear that by far the bulk of the expenditure went on the production side of the equation. And, out of the $153,163,766 directly spent on projects, the only other market-orientated works were "market centres", which attracted a mere $3,964,585 and a vegetable dehydration factory which cost $3,022,887.

As always, though, the bland figures do not tell the whole story. It is interesting that the "farm-to-market" road rehabilitation programme was managed by Chemonics. The strategic road programme, however, was contracted out to a completely different group and there was not always any co-ordination between the two programmes. Thus, a farm-to-market road could end up being a "road to nowhere", the "market centre" lacking communications with the wider market.

Nor indeed were the "market centres" always of any great value, journalist Fariba Nawa describing one as "a small patio with a pitched roof built on the main road in Parwan where farmers from the co-operative were supposed to sell their harvest". It was, she noted, "vacant and covered with dust."

This example is one of many which reinforces a sense of unease about the use of contractors in Afghanistan, one other being more recent concern expressed about the amount of aid money which is being spent on expatriate salaries – typically 200 times the average annual salary of an Afghan civil servant.

Complaints have also been aired that some 40 percent of the aid pledged to Afghanistan returns to donor countries, spent "on corporate profits and consultancy fees," inviting the image of "fat cats" creaming off money intended for the poor who are forced to rummage in waste dumps for their livings (see picture at top of post – used in precisely that context).

For their money, though, Chemonics most recently points to a piece published by the IHT in November 2007. This retailed news of a development on marketing pomegranates in Kandahar, where USAID was spending $6.6 million on agricultural and marketing assistance programs.

This had involved the construction of a new cold storage facility and the implementation of quality control programmes, doubling the price of pomegranates to 54 cents per pound. The programme, we were told, had helped ship 690 tons to India, 600 to Pakistan and 36 to Dubai, mostly on outgoing military flights. Furthermore, a sample half-ton shipment had been sent to the United States.

Oddly though, as Kandahar is in the sector administered by the Canadians, they too are claiming credit, describing the project as Canada's Afghan legacy. First there, however, were the Indians with a $1.5 million cold storage investment in 2005.

Nevertheless, in 2007, according to Time magazine Afghani farmers had harvested between 33,000 and 44,000 tons of the fruit, of which some 1,102 tons had been exported, most to India, Dubai and Singapore. Tiny quantities had found their way to London and Vancouver, while "strict phytosanitary requirements" had kept them out of the US. And, with this year's harvest expected to reach 68,000 tons, with exports rising "to as much as 3,000 tons", this was regarded as a success.

It says something that USAID was driven to announce that in February, 6,000 kg of end-of-season pomegranates had been sold to India - a mere six tons.

Then, at the end of May, success came, from an unlikely source, without USAID involvement. An agreement was signed with two Japanese companies to export up to 20,000 tonnes of pomegranates to Japan this year. Strangely, the provincial chamber of commerce head, Razaq Rafiqi, complained that the central government was not doing enough to help fruit farmers in the province.

Nevertheless, with officials claiming that fresh and dry fruits worth US$35 million were exported last year from Kandahar province – mostly to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates - they are now confident of a considerable increase this year.

Long before this had happened, though, journalist Fariba Nawa reminded us that, among the primary goals set out by USAID in the Chemonics contract was the establishment of reliable domestic and international markets for Afghan agricultural goods. By nearly all accounts but its own, she wrote, Chemonics has been a failure in this regard.

It is hard to disagree in principle, but some of the fault must lie with the State Department and its own USAID organisation for taking its eye off the ball. Bureaucracies, the world over, it seems, are universally incapable of anything which could be considered approximating efficiency. Even private enterprise in conjunction with a state apparatus hardly seems better.

For pomegranate growers, unfettered private enterprise seems to have offered a better deal, coming from outside the protective cordon of the European and American trade systems. In this one, important instance, Japan has done more than either to advance the global war against terror. And, in the final analysis, it is more of the same that is eventually going to beat the insurgency in Afghanistan. A supermarket buyer, waving a substantial contract, is probably worth more than a thousand troops – and certainly more than 10,000 aid officials.

COMMENT THREAD

Winning the war - Part XI: Vacuum at the centre

Habib, the labourer, looks at the new mansions in Shirpur and sees injustice. "These people are very bad people. That money was for us and they took it," he said. "The Taleban time was very bad and now it is very bad for the poor. Where is the difference?"

So runs the concluding paragraph of a piece written in November 2006 by Associated Press staff writer Kathy Gannon, published in The Boston Globe and no doubt elsewhere, now archived on an Afghani web site.

It makes the point, as do many other pieces over the years, that much of the aid money that has flowed into Afghanistan has done little to alleviate poverty, ending up instead financing expatriate salaries and expenses, and funding the extravagant lifestyles of ministers, high officials and contractors, all with their hands in the pot.

This was precisely the point to which we alluded in our previous part, airing complaints about high salaries, and the huge amount of aid which was siphoned off before it got near the people for whom it was intended. According to the Kabul-based Integrity Watch Afghanistan (IWA), of the $25 billion in aid to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2008, only some $15 billion had been spent and, for every $100 spent, sometimes only $20 actually reaches Afghan recipients.

In this context, the reference to Shipur is an interesting one – a suburb of Kabul which was forcibly cleared of impoverished squatters, and small businesses (pictured) with plots of land then sold at bargain-basement prices to "ministers and commanders", for development of palatial residences. The picture at the top shows one such, which just happens to belong to the minister of agriculture – funded from the aid budget.

Although occasional, critical references to the huge disparity of wealth do find their way into the media, they are relatively rare – and represent only a tiny proportion of the overall coverage.

But the story of conspicuous wealth in Kabul, with its high-priced shopping malls, prestige hotel developments, apartment rents approaching those of London and Paris, and streets choked with SUVs, is one that has been told at length.

The hopelessness of the situation is summed up by a a Chemonics worker, recently back from Helmand. She was left troubled "by a foreign aid process in which an idea is hatched in a nest of good intentions and self-promotional spin in Washington and implemented, at least in this case, without a comprehensive situational assessment." She added: "The combined results of policy hubris and the for-profit's reckless mismanagement of the project made me less proud to be an American, and glad to get out alive."

The picture is almost uniformly bleak, with rampant corruption in high places, supporting and protecting the opium trade and gun running, failed aid schemes and even teachers going on strike over low wages.

Here, the story is a familiar one. Ostensibly, the developments in education have been a success story: almost six million children are now in school compared with 2001 when there were maybe a million, but no girls. But, behind that headline figure is massive underfunding of the system. Teachers complain that their incomes have barely changed since the Taleban regime was overthrown and, with basic living expenses increasing, they are struggling to survive.

A diagnosis is articulated by Aziza Khalil, a chemistry teacher, who complains: "The problem is with the people in high positions. They steal the money given to the ministry of education and build themselves a house, a beautiful castle."

That story needs to be re-told and heavily emphasised to illustrate that the flood of aid money pouring into Afghanistan is actually doing more harm than good. With over 70 percent of the spend devoted to just two of the 31 provinces, Kabul and Kandahar – where president Hamid Karzai was born – the rest of the aid is spread so thinly as barely to have an effect, giving rise to growing discontent, the nature of which can only help fuel the insurgency.

Furthermore, that situation is being made worse by the return of an estimated five million refugees since 2001, some forcibly repatriated from Iran and Pakistan, which is imposing considerable stress on already inadequate services, and adding to the growing unemployment.

Worse still, because of the uneven distribution of aid, and the flood of money into Kabul, there is considerable rural drift to the city. The population was estimated at around three million in 2004 but is currently growing at about five percent a year, representing a yearly increase of 150,000 people. This growth has led to proliferation of "informal housing" – i.e., slums – which now shelter a staggering 80 percent of the city's population and cover over two-thirds of its residential land area. Most lack basic infrastructure, including access to water, sewerage, and drainage.

Therein lies an intractable problem for the coalition forces and their member nations. Heavily involved in the counter-insurgency, they rely – as we have pointed out earlier on several occasions – on a sound political framework in which to operate. Then, crucially, in terms of "nation-building", the absolute requirement is gradually to build the capacity of the central government, enabling it to take over the functions of the external agencies – including their armed forces.

The ultimate "victory" is one that will then allow the bulk of the coalition forces to be withdrawn but, as pointed out in the US Army counterinsurgency manual, written by General David Petreus, "Victory cannot be gained until the people accept the legitimacy of the government mounting COIN and stop actively and passively supporting the insurgents."

As it stands, there is no immediate prospect of this happening. To the contrary, the central government is weak, ridden with corruption and largely ineffective. Its reach is so limited that president Karzai is mockingly referred to as the "Mayor of Karbul" - his priorities so far adrift that his personal website fails to offer anything on rural development (pictured left).

In that environment, even the most effective military action cannot prevail. As Petreus himself noted in his manual:

When Col. Harry Summers allegedly told a North Vietnamese counterpart in 1975 that "You know you never defeated us on the battlefield," the reply supposedly was, "That may be so, but it is also irrelevant." Military actions by themselves cannot achieve success in COIN. Tactical actions must not only be linked to operational and strategic military objectives, but also to the essential political goals of COIN. Without those connections, lives and resources may be wasted for no real gain.

And we are almost back in a Vietnam situation, where the US backed the anti-Communist politician Ngo Dinh Diem, who proved likewise to be corrupt, ineffective and unpopular.

The current problem – as with Vietnam – is that if the outsiders interfere with the national leadership then they are seen as meddling, and any new leader is then dubbed a "puppet", losing any chance of gaining legitimacy. Already, Karzai is thus considered by many, but there is little to be gained by replacing him. There is every chance a replacement could be worse, and any attempt to depose Karzai could completely destabilise an already fragile situation.

As for the options presented to the coalition forces – and especially the UK – these appear to be very limited. The advice of former Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Michael Jackson is, essentially to "hang in there" – expressed in these terms:

We must understand that it will take time, and we must have the will to achieve what we have set out to do. It follows that we must, therefore, be willing to provide the means required.

The means required, however, in the absence of the support of the population, is the massive domination of the territory, requiring troop levels that are inconceivable high. Even given the will, the coalition forces could not provide enough men. And, with lower force levels, over time, we face the continual attrition, mounting casualties and decreasing public support. Something more tangible must be done.

Following our own narrative, the obvious first step would seem to be a complete reappraisal of the aid provision. Given an Afghani government which is manifestly incapable of managing its distribution, means need to be found of by-passing the central apparatus and getting it directly to the places and people where it is needed.

However, with that must come a complete reappraisal of priorities. The focus of aid – short of satisfying immediate humanitarian needs and undertaking important public health works to minimise epidemics of infection disease – should be solely directed at wealth generation. Given that the country is primarily agricultural, the only way it can do this is to concentrate on high value produce and, since there is no domestic market which could absorb the capacity, this necessarily requires the rapid development of export markets.

This, in fact, was pointed out in 2003 in a comprehensive report by the Asian Development Bank which, with remarkable clarity, stated:

The recovery process outlined in this report has a 5-year timeframe. In this period the emphasis will be on achieving a large measure of self-sufficiency, especially in cereal production. This is a household priority, given the legacy of the past 25 years, which has left so many families unable to feed themselves. However, while self-sufficiency is a household and social priority, economically it may not be the preferred option, because achieving a high level of dependency on domestically grown cereals would depend on using high-cost irrigation systems. A longer-term development framework might involve the importation of most cereals, while Afghan agricultural production systems focused on a range of cash crop exports. Achieving this potential will depend on the outcomes of the medium term development framework.

That "5-year timeframe" has now expired and the country has vastly improved its own self-sufficiency. It is time to move on to the longer-term development framework. Here, the Bank states:

In 1978, Afghanistan's population of 14 million was self sufficient in cereals and had a flourishing export market in horticultural products. The present population is estimated at about 20 million, with a rural population of around 16.5 million. In the past 20 or so years, agricultural technologies have advanced substantially, enabling agricultural systems to more than keep pace with population increases. On this basis, and assuming a stable and secure political environment, it would be realistic to expect Afghanistan's return to its 1978 status in the not too distant future.

The process of recovery has started, but requires further elaboration to ensure that all concerned are contributing constructively to this common goal. Recovery of the rural sector will depend upon balancing sustainable natural resource use and population pressures. As the economy remains overwhelmingly rural and agricultural - 80–85% of Afghans depend upon natural resources for their livelihood - the pace of recovery in the rural sector will largely determine the overall rate of economic recovery.

That last sentence says it all, yet the lesson has not sunk in. The current "recovery" is completely dependent on the continued flow of aid which is sustaining an entirely artificial economic boom. The main growth industry is servicing the aid and NGO communities. This cannot continue.

Here, I am reminded of my own experience in the early 70s, when I spent a prolonged period working on a Kibbutz in northern Israel. Although surrounded by orange groves, I noted that the one fruit we never seemed to have were oranges. Commenting on this to my hosts, I was told rather sternly that they were solely produced for their thriving export market, which the State of Israel had assiduously developed. "When we are rich", my host said, "we can eat oranges – for now, we sell them". That is how it should be in Afghanistan – which could learn many lessons from Israel.

As to the wider development of the country – with the generation of wealth comes a tax base. The next priority, therefore, is to develop a taxation system which can call in a share of that wealth, which can then be used to reinforce wealth generation and also fund public services.

Thus, the order of play should be to concentrate aid on wealth generation, from which the government can benefit through increased tax income which it can then use to fund further development.

Therein also lies the elements of "nation building". As long as non-essential (i.e., non wealth creating) development is undertaken by agencies other than the central government, that government is marginalised.

If the government is cut out of the aid loop and is forced to earn its keep through its tax system, it must engage with its own people, upon which it will depend. As it stands, Karzai's main paymaster is the donor community. For as long as the money keeps flowing, he does not need his people and – sheltering behind the protection of the coalition forces – he can afford to ignore their needs.

There, then, lies economic and political basis for the military strategy which must be adopted - almost. There is another source of money that must be dealt with ... the flow of money from drug processing and distribution. This, the military must deal with (with some help - about which more later) combined with devoting its resources to pursuing licit wealth creation. It must provide the security for it, and prevent interference. Everything else is secondary. More than that, it is - as the anonymous North Vietnamese officer put it – "irrelevant".

How it should go about this, we will look at in the next and what may be the final part.

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