Afghanistan doesn't discredit the case for aid; it discredits the case for conscripting aid into short-term military goals. The COIN imperative has not only directed money away from the regions where it could have the best effect, it has also dictated that much of it is devoted to ambitious development or public-works projects carried out by American non-profits and private companies outside the control of the Afghan government. Such "off-budget" spending is immensely wasteful; a recent World Bank report concluded that only 10-20 percent of such funds actually reach Afghanistan, as opposed to 70-80 percent of money given to the Afghan government. And of course it does nothing to strengthen the government, allegedly the ultimate goal of the program.
This is not as illogical as it sounds. Because, as Acemoglu and Robinson convincingly argue, poor institutions play a central role in state failure, host governments are often too weak, or too corrupt, to entrust with large-scale projects. And Afghanistan is Exhibit A for weak-state syndrome. Nevertheless, my students, bless their idealistic hearts, organized their presentation on Afghanistan around the theme of empowering Afghans in their own development -- for example, by increasing Afghan entrepreneurs' access to financing and Western expertise. Self-sufficiency is, after all, the best exit strategy; it just requires a great deal of patience, the one commodity the Pentagon isn't blessed with.
Now the military is leaving. With the COIN phase coming to an end, the United States can afford to focus on the slow work of enhancing local capacity which is the sine qua non of nation-building. Alex Thier, the USAID official responsible for Afghanistan and Pakistan, says that the administration is well aware of the need to encourage Afghan self-sufficiency, and has been channeling increasing sums through the more capable ministries, like the Ministry of Public Health. Thier also says that USAID has begun to spend far more of its funds outside the conflict zones.
Thier argues that the advances in Afghan well-being enabled by U.S. and international aid have already helped stabilize the country. We'll see what happens when U.S. forces withdraw from Helmand and Kandahar; news accounts have emphasized the enduring popular, and ubiquity, of the Taliban in the disputed south. The irony is that the new strategy of directly funding the Afghan government may do more to stabilize the country than have the off-budget projects dictated by the COIN strategy. The $16 billion which the United States and other donors have pledged to give Afghanistan over the next four years represents a big drop in total aid; but because donors promised that half the funds would be sent through Kabul, the government should be more able to pay for its commitments than it has in the past. And 80 percent of the funds will be aligned with Kabul's own priorities. That is an important vote of confidence -- deserved or not -- for a government desperately seeking legitimacy with its own people.
With the threat of terrorism receding along Afghanistan's border with Pakistan but growing in North Africa and elsewhere, I'm not sure that Obama can come up with a compelling national-security rationale for the long-term commitment to Afghanistan he's undertaken. In any case, his heart is plainly no longer in it. But I would offer something simpler: We got Afghanistan into this mess, and we should do what we can to help get it out.
SUBJECTS:
