1. “A
New Plan for a New Afghanistan”, www.TheDiplomat.com,
May 2013
Afghanistan's
future will not be determined by the thousands of lives tragically lost, the
billions spent, or the number of international troops that will remain after
2014. The number of troops on the ground — whether foreign or Afghan — will not
decide our future. We can only secure Afghanistan’s success if we first secure
sustainable economic development at home.
We
are confronting a unique set of economic challenges at a time when the West is
confronting their own. Demographic shifts and an unsustainable debt burden will
fundamentally change the calculus of aid and intervention; we must come up with
our own solutions. Our success as a nation will rest largely on our capacity to
create economic growth, stimulate job creation, and use financial innovation to
create and sustain entrepreneurs and functioning markets as well as increase
our access to global capital through our natural resources.
Much
has been written about the immense wealth that lies in the ground as well as
the immense difficulty of extracting it. To meet its unusual challenges,
Afghanistan needs a novel plan to reverse the trend that typically befalls
nations struggling through extreme poverty while possessing vast mineral
wealth. The solution I propose includes the establishment of transparent and
accountable trusts first, then pledging a fraction of Afghanistan's mineral
wealth to those trusts, and thirdly issuing bonds backed by the trust's value
to fund agricultural, water, and industrial development projects first, not
last. As mining tenders are accepted, a portion of those proceeds should be
earmarked to pay down the trust and service the capital.
2.
USAID-Tijara Technical Reports, www.usaid.gov,
January 2013.
An
illustrated report on the impact and accomplishments of the USAID-Tijara
Provincial Economic Growth Program from its inception in April 2008 through
November 2012. Includes investor guides
to Iraq’s provinces.
ConvergEx's Nick Colas undertook a recent
trip to Afghanistan. As he notes, the
country has a long way to go to reestablish a viable economy and political
stability, but he saw enough to be optimistic on both counts. Security around the capital is tight, and
Afghan troops look professional and disciplined. There is ample food on display in countless
local grocery stands. Girls go to school
throughout the city, although women are a less common sight on the streets. Scarcity makes for odd economic outcomes –
the only passenger car you’ll see is a Toyota Corolla, imported from different
countries. No Afghan will be surprised
that you are a tourist in their country – they are still very proud of its
history and resilience. Westerners there
will assume you are “On business.” Here are seven “Postcards from Kabul” with
his last observations from this trip.
4. “What
have we learned about stabilization in Afghanistan? Not much.”, Foreign Policy,
May 2013.
As
of this year, Afghanistan has experienced ten years of stabilization
intervention, but what is there to show for it? Marked by massive expenditure
with little to no accountability, and often marred by waste, stabilization in
Afghanistan started out with arguably honorable aims. However, as troops
prepare to leave in 2014, what legacy will be left behind?
Provincial
Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) began with perhaps the best of intentions: to fill
the vacuum of law and order left by the fall of the Taliban and undertake
reconstruction, badly needed in a country devastated by three decades of
conflict. The security situation was perceived to be relatively benign, with
the major threats being criminals and warlords seeking to reassert power.
PRTs
did some positive work, often acting as the only authority in a security
vacuum, and were appreciated, at least early on, by Afghans. They were no
substitute, however, for the effective governance and security required. PRTs'
predominantly military staff received little to no training, lacked the
technical skills required to carry out development work and focused more on
short term quick impact projects instead of the long term
state-and-peace-building work that was so badly needed. Rather than seeking to build Afghan capacity
- a central component of their mandate - they often worked around the
government. The PRTs also created winners and losers, supporting local
strongmen or funneling money through often corrupt construction companies.
5. “U.S.
Treasury Department Removes Sanctions Against Iraqi Bank”, U.S. Department of
the Treasury, May 2013.
The
Department of the Treasury has lifted sanctions against the Elaf Islamic Bank
in Iraq following the bank’s significant and demonstrated change in behavior.
On
July 31, 2012 the Treasury Department imposed sanctions under the Comprehensive
Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment Act of 2010 (CISADA), against
Elaf Islamic Bank, a privately-owned Iraqi financial institution, for knowingly
facilitating significant transactions and providing significant financial
services for the U.S. and EU-designated Export Development Bank of Iran
(EDBI). Following the CISADA finding,
Elaf immediately engaged the Treasury Department and began an intensive course
of action to stop the conduct that led to the CISADA sanction, including
freezing EDBI accounts at Elaf and reducing its overall exposure to the Iranian
financial sector. Following today’s
action U.S. financial institutions are once again permitted to open or maintain
correspondent accounts or payable-through accounts in the United States for
Elaf Islamic Bank.
6. “We Served Too: Some Thoughts After Benghazi Regarding
Resilience of Civilians Deployed in Conflict Zones and High Threat Security
Posts”, Anne Speckhard, May 2013.
Currently
thousands of American civilian workers -- from military contractors, to
civilian and foreign service workers (representing the Departments of State,
Justice, Commerce, USAID, etc.), as well as reservists and former military who
return to do civilian service, bravely serve our nation -- deploying into
conflict zones such as Iraq and Afghanistan and into high threat security posts
such as Pakistan, Libya and elsewhere. Last year four of these civilians, U.S.
Ambassador Christopher Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and two embassy
security personnel Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty gave the ultimate sacrifice --
these four were killed in Benghazi, Libya as they served our nation.
Soldiers
are well trained and prepared psychologically to face armed conflict. Civilian
contractors, government servants and diplomats -- who serve alongside and in
support of our military -- are not as well trained, prepared or supported pre,
during and post deployment as their military counterparts. Yet in recent years
we see that they are deployed by the thousands, into uncertain and
anxiety-provoking environments. And these facts have serious implications for
the psycho-social resilience and physical welfare of our civilian forces
deployed in high threat security environments.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-speckhard/we-served-too-some-though_b_3322091.html
and http://blog.annespeckhard.com/2013/05/27/we-served-too-remembering-civilian-sacrifices-made-in-behalf-of-our-country-honoring-those-who-served-alongside-the-military-in-conflict-zones-and-high-threat-security-environments/
7. Guccifer Obama Campaign Iraq White Papers (11.3 MB) http://cryptome.org/2013/05/guccifer-iraq-white-papers.pdf
8. Department
of Defense’s Use of Contractors to Support Military Operations: Background,
Analysis, and Issues for Congress”, Congressional Research Service, May 2013.
Throughout
its history, the Department of Defense (DOD) has relied on contractors to support
a wide range of military operations. Operations over the last thirty years have
highlighted the critical role that contractors play in supporting U.S.
troops—both in terms of the number of contractors and the type of work being
performed. Over the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, and before that, in
the Balkans, contractors accounted for 50% or more of the total military force.
Regardless
of whether future operations are similar to−or significantly different from−
those of the past decade most analysts and defense officials believe that
contractors will continue to play a central role in overseas military
operations. Consequently, these observers believe that DOD should be prepared
to effectively award and manage contracts at a moment's notice, anywhere in the
world, in unknown environments, and on a scale that may exceed the total
contract obligations
of any other federal agency.
9. “Iraq:
Politics, Governance, and Human Rights”, Congressional Research Service, April
2013.
Ten
years after the March 19, 2003 U.S. military intervention to oust Saddam
Hussein’s regime in Iraq, increasingly violent sectarian divisions are
undermining the fragile stability left in place after the U.S. withdrawal from
Iraq will collapse. Sunni Arab Muslims, who resent Shiite political domination,
are in increasingly open revolt against the government of Prime Minister Nuri
al-Maliki. The revolt represents an escalation of the Sunni demonstrations that
began in December 2012. Iraq’s Kurds are increasingly aligned with the Sunnis,
based on their own disputes with Maliki over territorial, political, and
economic issues. The Shiite faction of Moqtada Al Sadr has been leaning to the
Sunnis and Kurds, and could hold the key to Maliki’s political survival. Adding
to the schisms is the physical incapacity of President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd
who has served as a key mediator, who suffered a stroke in mid-December 2012
and remains outside Iraq. The rifts have impinged on provincial elections on
April 20, 2013, and will likely affect national elections for a new parliament
and government in 2014. Maliki is expected to seek to retain his post in that
vote.
10. “Direct
Overt U.S. Aid Appropriations for and Military Reimbursements to Pakistan,
FY2002-FY2014”, Congressional Research Service, April 2013 http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/row/pakaid.pdf
11. “Status
of Developing Afghan Governance and Lessons for Future Endeavors”, Stability:
International Journal of Security & Development, May 2013.
Building
the capacity of and reforming Afghan governance is widely viewed as the key to
success in Afghanistan. Assessing progress, however, is hampered by limited
data outside the Afghan security ministries – the Ministries of Defense and
Interior – and by the lack of a common definition of governance. Available
reporting suggests building governance capacity is far from complete. Varying
definitions of governance, coupled with the use of the term by numerous
organizations without defining it, results in addressing too broad a range of
issues. It would be more useful to concentrate on the core of governance –
providing the services the Afghan government has committed to provide to its
citizens. This, in turn, requires that Afghan ministries have the functional
capacity to carry out their responsibilities, including financial management,
budget formulation and execution, policy and strategic planning, and service
delivery. However, time is growing short. The Afghan experience provides some
important lessons that could guide future endeavors for the international
community. First, this paper discusses progress in building ministerial
capacity. Second, it discusses recent efforts to link continued financial
assistance to Afghanistan with improved governance. Third, it describes how the
lack of a commonly accepted definition of governance complicates assessing
progress. Finally, it offers conclusions and observations about the failure to
establish an autonomous Afghan governance capacity.
For
more than a decade, improving governance has been recognized as the most
difficult and critical challenge involving Afghan reconstruction. The Special
Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reports that U.S.
policymakers have consistently identified building the capacity of and
reforming Afghan governance as the key to success in Afghanistan (SIGAR 2012,
22).
12. “The Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK) – Shackled by a Twisted History,” Ambassador Lincoln P. Bloomfield,
Jr., March 2013.
13. “The
Search for Common Ground: Civil–Military Relations in Afghanistan, 2002–13”, Overseas
Development Institute, April 2013.
The
belief that development and reconstruction are central to stability and
security is not new. It is, however, also highly contentious, perhaps nowhere
more so than in Afghanistan, the longest running experiment in stabilisation.
Experiences
in Afghanistan have irrevocably shaped how aid agencies regard and relate to
military forces during conflict and, arguably, vice-versa. Through the
Afghanistan case, this Working Paper seeks to better understand the challenges
of civil–military dialogue – dialogue between military forces and independent
humanitarian actors – in the context of combined international and national
military forces pursuing stabilisation. In particular, it looks at the
challenges posed by military forces that actively seek to pursue development
and reconstruction – traditionally the domain of aid agencies – as a central
component of a military strategy.
Based
on extensive interviews with actors from all sides and a review of literature,
this analysis aims to uncover lessons from Afghanistan about what can be
achieved through structured engagement, at various levels, on civil–military
issues.
http://www.odi.org.uk/sites/odi.org.uk/files/odi-assets/publications-opinion-files/8395.pdf
(Summary)
14. “Securing
the Future of Afghanistan”, House of Commons Defence Committee (UK), March
2013.
Afghanistan
is one of the poorest countries in the world. It has suffered many years of
conflict. Prime Minister Tony Blair promised ‘The conflict will not be the end,
we will not walk away as the outside world has done so many times before.’
Throughout this inquiry into securing the future of Afghanistan, we have
received starkly opposing evidence and narratives of future scenarios following
the withdrawal of combat forces from those which are overly optimistic to those
which see only gloom and doom. The fact is that the UK will have limited
influence and, indeed, it is for the Afghan people themselves to determine for
their future. The best the UK can do is to withdraw in good order and engage
with external partners to improve the chances of Afghanistan going forward. In
so doing the UK and its international partners must show the Afghan people that
they will abide by their obligations to continue to support them in their
efforts including in the area of women’s rights which, at the start of the
conflict, the then US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, described as ‘non-
negotiable’...
Securing
the future of Afghanistan requires the concerted efforts of all the Afghan
people; regional neighbours, in particular Pakistan; the USA; NATO and other
coalition partners. Much detailed work needs to be done before the end of
combat operations at the end of 2014. We recognise that achieving a peaceful
Afghanistan is a process not an event but Afghanistan has to be given the best
chance when it takes over full responsibility for its own security.
15. “Travails
of mutual accountability in Afghanistan”, Foreign Policy, May 2013.
The
Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework (TMAF), agreed to at the July 2012 Tokyo
Conference on Afghanistan, started out with high hopes. International donors pledged to provide
Afghanistan with $4 billion in civilian aid per year through 2015 and to
continue significant support through 2017 and beyond, while the Afghan
government committed to governance improvements and a democratic political
transition as per the Afghan Constitution.
Less than a year into the implementation process, however, serious
obstacles are being encountered.
As
noted in a recent paper, the old adage about work in Soviet-era
centrally-planned economic systems -- "we pretend to work, and they
pretend to pay us" -- appears to be increasingly applicable to TMAF
implementation…
16.
“Early Mistakes
with Security Forces Advisory Teams in Afghanistan”, Military Review, May/June 2013.
IN
MID-2011, THE commander-in-chief announced the withdrawal of combat troops in
Afghanistan by 2014. Overnight, the security forces advisory team (SFAT),
rather than the brigade combat team (BCT), became the focal point of the war
effort. Senior level military planners had the unenviable task of converting
the theoretical into reality. When the first wave of these advisory teams were
set to deploy in spring of 2012, the entire leadership of several BCTs received
orders to start planning for a short-notice deployment as combat advisors. Such
a dramatic strategy shift from the BCT to the 12-man SFAT in Afghanistan was a
necessary change in methodology, but
brought with it the natural friction and challenges inherent to any rapid change
of mission.
Future
SFATs will be more prepared with more advance notice and a more deliberate
train-up prior to deployment. However, senior leaders must address other
significant shortcomings before the next wave of advisors arrives or we are
doomed to fight through the same “ambush” repeatedly. Most critically, we must
organize SFATs more appropriately for their assigned missions, and once
assigned, it should be rare if not unheard of to alter that SFAT mission or
partner. Frivolous reassignments can, at the stroke of a pen, render weeks or
months of training useless and indicate an attitude that predeployment training
is irrelevant.
17. “Afghanistan
Index”, Brookings Institution, April 2013.
