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Eagle's Summit Revisited Noah Arjomand Eagle’s Summit Revisited Decision-Making in the Kajaki Dam Refurbishment Project EXECUTIVE SUMMARY and the British military to show their mettle to a dominant US Department of Defense. The turbine The USAID-led effort to install an additional thus took on significance beyond the actual 18.5 hydroelectric turbine at the Kajaki Dam power megawatts of electricity that it was to provide, station in northern Helmand has been among the especially bearing in mind that this would, in fact, most costly development projects in Afghanistan put only a small dent in the ever-increasing since 2001, yet nearly eight years after the demand for electricity from southern Afghanistan’s contract was signed for its installation, the turbine cities. And so, this paper argues, the transport remains offline. Of particular note in the saga was operation went forward not because it was in a large-scale British-led military transport some objectively logical sense the best way to operation that brought parts for the turbine to the serve the war effort at the time, but because it dam by force in summer 2008. This paper revisits served the particular interests of the organizations that operation, seeking to explain why, despite that championed it. widely recognized warning signs that the turbine would not be producing electricity for destination 1. INTRODUCTION cities in the foreseeable future and at a time when insurgency was raging and British troops were In summer 2008, in what was hailed as the largest spread thin in Helmand, the decision was made to 1 British-led ‘route clearance operation’ since World devote enormous military resources to War II, nearly 5,000 International Security and transporting the turbine to the dam. In exploring Assistance Force (ISAF) and Afghan troops this decision-making process as a case study, I transported eight 20-to-30 tonne components of a address broader questions about how wartime hydroelectric turbine some 180 km from Kandahar development aid is implemented in practice, Air Field to the Kajaki (sometimes transliterated as particularly when multiple organizations with 2 Kajakai) Dam in Helmand province. The brainchild different interests and ways of doing things are involved. The installation of a third turbine (referred to as 1 With roadside explosive devices and ambushes among Turbine Two because it was to sit between the the most common means of insurgent attack in wars in existing turbines) appealed strongly to USAID’s Iraq and Afghanistan, operations to clear routes for development specialists, who saw it as a discrete convoys have become a routine preoccupation and task which was technically possible and could be necessity for forces waging counterinsurgency. 2 presented as a key contribution to the Alastair Leithead, ‘UK troops in Huge Turbine Mission’, counterinsurgency effort. Over time, Turbine Two BBC News, 2 September 2008. Jeremy Page, ‘Triumph for British forces in Boy’s Own-Style Kajaki Mission’, The became a way for both the American aid agency Times, 4 September 2008. 2 Noah Arjomand: Eagle’s Summit Revisited of the United States Agency for International Section 3 consists of my explanations for why the Development (USAID), the turbine’s installation decision was made when it was to transport the was to provide an estimated 1.7 million people turbine to the dam, despite foreseeable obstacles with electricity and to fuel agriculture and industry in completing its installation or delivering in the region, while in the process winning hearts additional electricity to destination cities and and minds for the Afghan government and its urgent calls for troops to be deployed in other foreign sponsors.3 Four years later, those parts parts of Helmand. I argue that decision-makers in remain in storage beside the dam, the project both USAID and the British military perceived a having been halted a year after Turbine Two was need to prove their respective organization’s delivered in recognition of the inability to bring the competency with a large-headline project that approximately 900 tonnes of concrete and aligned with the prevailing discourse equating aggregate (sand, gravel, crushed stone, etc.) development with counterinsurgency success. needed to actually mount the turbine in the dam’s Additionally, the rapid turnover of British military power station.4 units at the time made commanders loath to change plans to which they had already Efforts to install Turbine Two have recently been committed. In Section 4, I conclude with an update restarted, with USAID currently in the process of on the current state of the hydroelectric project bringing in a new subcontract for the job. Delays, and suggestions for how my arguments about however, are already evident.5 On the occasion of Kajaki as a case study might be generalized and these renewed efforts, it is worth revisiting the provide lessons about inter-organizational chain of events and decisions that led to the collaboration in comparable situations. operation, dubbed ‘Eagle’s Summit’, or ‘Oqab Tsuka’ in Pashto, that brought the turbine to Kajaki four years ago. The purpose of this study is not to 1.1 Methodology tell a story of personal accomplishment or incompetence on the part of its individual In July through December of this year I conducted implementers. Rather, I explore how structural twenty-four interviews with current and former factors – inter-organizational dynamics of employees of USAID, the Helmand Provincial competition as well as intra-organizational Reconstruction Team (PRT), the Afghan energy turnover and ideology – can help explain the utility Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS) and timing and reasons for the decision to transport private contracting firms that were involved in the the turbine to the dam in 2008. Kajaki project, in addition to other officials from the US, UK and the provincial governments in After outlining the methods and theoretical Kandahar and Helmand.6 Interviews were underpinnings of my research, I provide both an conducted either in person or by phone, as many overview of relevant technical issues and a foreigners working on the project during the time chronology of the project up until the turbine’s under study have since left Afghanistan. Three installation was abandoned in late 2009. I situate interviews with Kandahar government officials the project’s progress in the broader context of were done with the help of a Pashto translator; all counterinsurgency efforts in southern Afghanistan. others I conducted alone in English or Persian. Some people were interviewed more than once or 3 Ron Synovitz, ‘Afghanistan: Local Taliban Defeat Raises asked follow-up questions via email. All Hopes for Dam Project’, RFE/RL, 12 January 2007. interviewees spoke with the assurance that their 4 Embassy Kabul, ‘Kajaki Dam: More Energy Awaits names would not be published, nor would any Enhanced Security’, 29 October 2009, REF: 08 KABUL information from which they could be individually 2546. Available at www.wikileaks.ch. identified. 5 Interviews with sources, 1 September and 6 December 2012. In September, a USAID official told me that their In addition to interviews, news and internal conservative estimate for project completion was technical reports, contract and budget December 2014. However, USAID officials had told documentation related to the dam, and US State auditors from the Office of the Special Inspector General Department cables released by Wikileaks provided for Afghanistan Reconstruction earlier this year that data on what different actors knew and were Turbine Two would not realistically be installed before concerned with at different stages of the project, late 2015 or early 2016. Likewise, in its most recent and on technical aspects of the dam and its quarterly campaign assessment issued to the ISAF Joint Command this month, ISAF Regional Command – South cited 2016 as a plausible date for the completion of the turbine’s installation. 6 Despite my best efforts to make contacts through both Ibid. SIGAR, ‘Fiscal Year 2011 Afghanistan Infrastructure official and unofficial channels, I was unable to interview Fund Projects Are Behind Schedule and Lack Adequate anyone from the British military who was involved with Sustainment Plans’, Audit-12-12, 30 July 2012, 10. Kajaki. This lacuna is evident in my analysis. AAN Thematic Report 01/2013 Noah Arjomand: Eagle’s Summit Revisited 3 refurbishment. Accounts from journalists who have one should not assume goals to be singular – worked in the region, both published and gleaned indeed counterinsurgency (COIN) and from interviews, helped to fill in blanks about developmental goals have often called for different organizational cultures and, along with approaches and timetables. Goals might be better monographs and books concerned more generally viewed as the products of bargaining and with the Afghanistan war and international state- competition among groups with different outlooks building project, placed the Kajaki project in and interests.9 broader context. Of particular interest for this paper is the ‘garbage USAID, the British Ministry of Defence, DABS, and can’ model, which describes organizational the firms Louis Berger Group, Black & Veatch, and behaviour under conditions of ‘organized the China Machine-Building International anarchy’,10 wherein the goals of various Corporation were given a draft of this report participants are not centralized or uniform, before its release and the opportunity to respond processes are ad hoc rather than pursued following
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