From Kinshasa to Kandahar: Canada and Fragile States in Historical Perspective

University of Calgary PRISM: University of Calgary's Digital Repository University of Calgary Press University of Calgary Press Open Access Books 2016-05 From Kinshasa to Kandahar: Canada and Fragile States in Historical Perspective Carroll, Michael K; Donaghy, Greg University of Calgary Press Carroll, M.K. & Donaghy, G. (2016). "From Kinshasa to Kandahar: Canada and Fragile States in Historical Perspective." Beyond Boundaries: Canadian Defence and Strategic Studies Series; no. 6. University of Calgary Press, Calgary, Alberta. http://hdl.handle.net/1880/51199 book http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives 4.0 International Downloaded from PRISM: https://prism.ucalgary.ca FROM KINSHASA TO KANDAHAR: Canada and Fragile States in Historical Perspective Edited by Michael K. Carroll and Greg Donaghy ISBN 978-1-55238-845-7 THIS BOOK IS AN OPEN ACCESS E-BOOK. 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Acknowledgement: We acknowledge the wording around open access used by Australian publisher, re.press, and thank them for giving us permission to adapt their wording to our policy http://www.re-press.org CHAPTER 8 SIX YEARS IN KANDAHAR: Understanding Canada’s Multidimensional Effort to Build a Sustainable Afghan State1 Stephen M. Saideman Introduction In Afghanistan, Canada faced its most severe challenge with a contem- porary failed state—trying to develop order and good governance in an extremely hostile and impoverished environment. The simple phrases used to define the key “pillars” of the effort—security, governance, and development—are more than a little deceptive, as they gloss over the real- ity that Afghanistan lacked the ability to provide any core function of government. While the entire country faced, and continues to face, incredible difficulties after thirty years of war, the history, geography, and demog- raphy of the southern province of Kandahar made it an exceptionally hard place to build “state capacity.”2 For most of Canada’s time in the province, its agents largely ran the international state-building effort in Kandahar, testing the Canadian government’s capacity to coordinate its civilian and military efforts, and its 165 Kabul Figure 1: Map. (Credit: Marilyn Croot) willingness to dedicate sufficient resources to the work. The combination of limited means and challenging environment was daunting enough. Managing the Afghan mission was made even more difficult since the -in tervention occurred during an unusual time in Canadian history—one of minority government. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments had a hard time generating enough support in Ottawa and in the rest of the country to maintain the effort. Indeed, the bipartisan manoeuvring through which the mission was extended in 2008 also ensured its end- ing—imposing an arbitrary deadline of 2011. Consequently, Canada had only six years to “fix” one of the most failed regions of one of the most failed countries in the world. 166 Stephen M. Saideman Given the context and the constraints imposed by Canada’s limited capabilities and domestic politics, any evaluation of the effort must be a relative one. No international campaign was going to transform Kandahar into a functional, democratic, stable, productive, responsible, and sustainable success story in so little time. However, Canada’s relative success in Kandahar, even if only for a short period, suggests that Canada has the potential to play a positive state-building role in other failed and failing states. In Afghanistan, as this chapter contends, Canada did make a dif- ference, albeit a limited one that is likely to be of only temporary impact. The Challenge of Kandahar Afghanistan is a largely traditional society with very low literacy rates, an almost entirely agrarian economy, a history of decentralized political authority, and tribal divisions so complicated that outsiders brought in anthropologists to understand the complexities of local ties. The Soviet Union’s invasion in December 1979 plunged the country into war, with nearly continuous fighting ever since. The successful fight against the Soviet occupiers and the internecine wars among the victorious factions that followed were extraordinarily brutal. Peace, relative and temporary, came in 1996 at a high price—a very repressive Taliban government, whose Islamic fundamentalist leaders aimed to destroy most of the country’s surviving institutions and practices.3 The defeat of the Taliban in 2001–2 by the United States, working with the existing power brokers (warlords) in the northern corners of the country, provided only a temporary respite. The US and its allies defeated the Taliban quickly but responded slowly in rebuilding Afghan institutions. Other than anointing Hamid Karzai as the Taliban’s heir apparent, the US did little in the early 2000s to reconstruct the country, since such efforts seemed akin to nation-building, a policy that was anathema to American President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.4 Only in 2005–6 did NATO move outside Kabul to support the Afghan government as it sought to extend its authority beyond the capital and into the countryside. 8 | Six Years in Kandahar 167 Historic underdevelopment, decades of war, and the relatively slow Western response after 2001 have meant that Afghanistan consistently ranks near the top in any measure of state fragility or state failure. In- deed, that any country other than Somalia might be more “failed” than Afghanistan is stunning.5 Despite efforts by NATO to stabilize the country, Afghanistan remains one of the world’s largest producers of refugees. Indeed, the NATO strategy focused on providing growing bits of order in concentrated areas—the “ink spots” approach to counter-insurgency. This reveals precisely how limited the reach of the Afghan government was—to where NATO troops were standing and not much further. Indeed, since responsibility for security has transitioned from the International Secur- ity Assistance Force to the Afghan National Security Forces, we have seen the ink spots shrink, with the reach of the Afghan government decreasing and the zones of disorder becoming larger. NATO’s efforts to build the sound governing institutions required by a self-sustaining country have been constrained by the Afghan government itself. In contrast to the situation in Bosnia, where international stakeholders via the Office of the High Representative could remove re- calcitrant politicians, the Afghan government was largely immune to outside interference. President Hamid Karzai appointed government officials from the highest levels to the lowest office, and his focus was not always on good governance. In Kandahar, Canadians were often frustrated, not just with the governors and bureaucrats appointed by Karzai but also with the region’s key power broker: Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of the president.6 Within this badly failed state, Kandahar stands out as one of the most challenging parts of the country.7 The province sits astride key trading routes between Pakistan and the poppy-rich province of Helmand. The Arghandab river provides not only irrigation but, potentially, electrical power for the region. The city of Kandahar is one of the largest in the country, and the closest population centre to the Taliban’s safe havens in Pakistan. These features provide tremendous opportunities for whoever controls this area, which has most recently been the home of the Taliban. The Islamic movement emerged from Kandahar, where it was based on the strength of key tribes in the province.

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