Please Send More Than Troops

If the window closes to fix Afghanistan's government, more boots on the ground won't matter.

BY ASHRAF GHANI | NOVEMBER 10, 2009

The end of Afghanistan's election last week leaves the Barack Obama administration with a narrow window of opportunity to implement a new strategy. While much attention has been paid to such questions as troop levels and counterinsurgency tactics, real success will depend on much less tangible things: personal security, economic growth, and better governance on the ground. Only a strategy aimed at this political progress -- as much as military gains -- has any chance of success.

Now is the time to implement a framework for progress that focuses on protecting civilians, institutionalizing good governance, and spurring economic growth. It will take hard work and even tougher decisions on the part of both the NATO troops and the Afghan government. The risks of further engagement are grave, but there are several reasons why the time is ripe for such a strategy to finally take root.

Opponents of the war in Afghanistan argue that the International Security Assistance Forces' (ISAF's) mission is fundamentally flawed because Afghans, and Pushtuns particularly, simply don't want foreign forces on their land. This is not true. For years as finance minister, I watched as tribal leaders came to the government to ask for more foreign troops. What they wanted then and still want now is security, justice, and a military operation that does not endanger civilians.

Indeed, one of the few positive outcomes of August's presidential election has been an emerging Afghan national consensus on the need for good governance, peace, and reconciliation. As a result, the aspirations of the Afghan people coincide more than ever before with the objectives of President Obama: security and development.

Both Afghans and the international community today share a better understanding of the urgency of rule of law, justice, economic activity, and reconciliation than they have since the start of the war. Even the ISAF has acknowledged that good governance is a prerequisite for peace. ISAF Commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal's recent strategy report concluded that the illegal behavior of government officials and its cronies poses as much of a threat to the future of Afghanistan as the violent insurgency.  

Internationally there are also positive signs that major global players are taking the threat of al Qaeda more seriously, and significant cooperation can be achieved. Saudi Arabia, China, and Russia have said they can agree to the Saudi proposal to work together to defeat the insurgency. As articulated by Prince Turki, that proposal argues that it is necessary to differentiate between al Qaeda and the Taliban. While al Qaeda should be treated as a common, global enemy, the Taliban should be treated separately, as a more manageable domestic challenge for Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia's position of leadership in the Muslim world brings badly needed legitimacy to a new counter insurgency and peace and reconciliation plan.

Perhaps most important of all, the joint action by global powers is finally helping persuade Pakistani decision-makers to take a more pro-active, constructive role in regional security. Already communication and coordination has improved between Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zadari, as recent military initiatives in South Waziristan have shown. Faced by a coherent front, Afghanistan can now become an ally, not just a liability.

Economic development will of course be vital to sustaining security gains. After narcotics have helped cripple the economy, there is a sense abroad that Afghanistan is destined to be poor and needs to be rescued. In reality, Afghanistan has the natural resource wealth to sustain itself. The U.S. Geological Survey has confirmed large deposits of iron, copper, gold, gas, and several gemstones under the country's soil. Afghans are ready to do business with the world but are held back by insecurity.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

 

Ashraf Ghani was a candidate for president in Afghanistan and is the former finance minister. Based in Kabul, he is chairman of the Institute for State Effectiveness, author of A Just Order in Pashto and Dari, and co-author of Fixing Failed States in English.

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SMCI60652

2:11 PM ET

November 11, 2009

Pray tell

Pray tell what evidence exists that any or all of the agendas you lay out are even possible?

Security, Governance, Development, and Peace.

Even if we grant that 35 to 40,000 more American troops and 5,00 more European troops can shore up the security situation (a highly contentious proposition), what proof exists that the other three objectives are achievable?

What aspects of the Afgan political economy and societal relationships has significantly been altered, or can be significantly altered in order to assure that corruption is not the norm, and Governance can stabilize and be civil services centered?

You yourself lay out the sad history of foreign aid towards development, at times citing the corruption of foreign contractors. What aspect of the aid paradigm has significantly shifted in order to assure that Development coalesces and achieves its stated purpose? Have new oversight bodies been created in donor countries? What on-the-ground and largescale monitoring do we have for development aid that's making sure it is accomplishing its goal?

As for ongoing and sustained Peace, which is naturally the end-goal, how can this be achieved if the Taliban is being sent mixed signals and more and more Pashtuns are joining the ranks every day? On the one hand President Karzai extends a hand of reconciliaton, and on the other you openly ask for more troops in what can only be seen as an affront to the Taliban. What is the cohesive message you are trying to send to all the people of Afghanistan, not just particular ethnicities?

 

JAYDEE001

2:49 PM ET

November 11, 2009

AMEN

The opportunity for a successful conclusion to the Afghan occupation is long past. That train left the station just as our military prepared to squander lives and treasure in a misbegotten adventure in Iraq. Seven or eight years later, what has been accomplished in Afghanistan to support any confidence that this will be anything other than another military and economic debacle for the USA. It is certainly understandable that the population of that poor war-racked place might want peace, stability, and economic development. But why should young men and women from the USA die in its mountains and valleys to give Afghanis what they have been historically unable to achieve for themselves?

For all the military power employed and the economic treasure that the US has expended during the past decade in that part of the world, we are told that the only possible course is another round of "stay the course". The policy of containment was successful in keeping the Soviet union at bay for over 50 years, and it has not even been tried in our recent international contests. Counterinsurgency is an arduous and very expensive (in terms of money and lives) means of carrying out a foreign policy. It failed in Vietnam. It will eventually fail in Afghanistan. The Iraq experience is an even bigger joke - that country will be a satellite of Shiite Iran within the decade, regardless of US troops stationed there - but confined to their bases unless the Iraqi leaders call them for help.

Afghanistan will be a failed state regardless of how many of our soldiers and those of our NATO allies die there. That is, unless the Afghan people will it otherwise. It is time to re-assess the whole notion of a "global war on terrorism", before we destroy the most potent military apparatus on the planet, and exhaust our economy in the process.

 

GERONIMO

3:34 PM ET

November 11, 2009

Send more troops?

Ashraf Ghani writes:"The debate over Gen. McChrystal's proposed strategy has been reduced to the number of troops, but the issue is more complex. "
It sure is ,and a token of this is that the well-reasoned case that Ghani makes addresses only the lesser part of the problem. Lets face it, we're not going to remake Afghanistan the way Ghani wishes because we're lacking
the money and the time as well as a deep eniough understanding of what is possible to do to keep Afghanistan from becoming once again a base for terrorist attacks on the US. The NYTimes' hunch that one of the options the adminstration is considering to solve "Afghanistan" is the dispatch of 10,000 troops to instruct the army there how to turn aound to the side of demodcratic virtue. But Fort Hood is just one demonsttration, a potent one because it's close to home, that this idea may just be a pipe cream. Lookit, Afghanistan is a prisoner of its ancient culture which entails tribalism,authoritarianism, and economic theory and practice that hinges on what we choose to regard as corruption.Karzai is a rather mild personification of this. The thing is to plan to get out as soon as Holbrooke
is finally cleared to impose a reliable deal which makes it probable that terrorism will not be allowed to base in Afghanistan in the future. And then let Afghanistan go its own way, along with our good wishes andf some aid.

 

OMARALI50

11:24 AM ET

November 13, 2009

I wrote this on another

I wrote this on another website (in response to some discussion about taliban and ANA) and I think it has some kind of tangential relevance here...btw, this is in the nature of testing out a hypothesis. I think things could turn out differently..

There is argument at the level of propaganda and we are all familiar with it, but I am going to put on my cynical cassandra hat:

1. The majority of the afghan people want peace and progress, but the majority cannot be said to automatically know how to get there (this is true of all people in some trivial sense). What Anand is saying about the ANA may have been true, but when the US signals withdrawal, things are bound to change. Most people do not support the taliban or the karzai regime. They support whatever option is marginally better than the rest in giving them peace and security. With full western support and creative and consistent effort, that MAY have been the ANA, it wont be once Obama completes his pullout dance. Support will then necessarily shift.

2. It will not shift all to the taliban. Where local warlords are capable of resisting the taliban, a lot of it will shift to them.

3. Obama and the West have probably not decided to pull out. WE can see that pullout, they cannot. This is a tragic but perhaps expected situation. Tragic because it means a lot of killing will be carried out on all sides while the Western powers figure out that they are leaving (not to mention how tragic it will be for good people like Ashraf Ghani, who have not hedged their bets with warlords or drug dealers).

4. Of course, all that killing will be nothing compared to the orgy of violence that will come AFTER the withdrawal.

5. Jihadi propagandists (including the oversmart spin masters at GHQ, like Shireen Mazari and Ahmed Qureshi) will find that victory is sometimes much worse than defeat. Their objective interests (as a class) actually lie with the West and India (not with "the gap", as Barnett would say), they just dont know it. Eventually, they will be shunted aside or will change their tune OR "everything burns"...btw, I am not buying all of Barnett Bahadur's cheery theories either...

6. As always, I hope to be proved wrong. But watching the show unfold in the national security team in Washington, I now think this will all end sooner than we thought.

7. Finally, I dont think the average American taxpayer will be worse off (or at least, they will not be much affected by this whole business). It may be that the lives of average people will be materially better just as the lives of average britons have been better since their empire moved on (at least for a couple of generations..nothing lasts forever), especially if the important parts of the world are still cooperating and in order. The places the US leaves behind may also be better off, but not ALL of them. I dont think there is some general rule that EVERY region is ready to rule themselves and cooperate with some kind of international order as well. Some will fall into anarchy until a new policeman takes control (chinese?)..Unfortunately, I think Afghanistan is in that category and could drag a chunk of Pakistan down with it. Worse case scenario, all of south asia is in trouble...And I am making no judgment about how much foreign "interference" has helped to bring things to this pass. Just describing things as they seem to be unfolding.