Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)

Afghanistan in Transition: A Trip Report with Anthony Cordesman

Speaker: Anthony Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy, CSIS

Location: CSIS, Washington, D.C.

Time: 9:30 a.m. EDT Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2013

Transcript by Federal News Service Washington, D.C. ANTHONY CORDESMAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am going to violate a long-standing CSIS principle and actually begin on time. (Laughter.) I apologize for that, but I promise you it will not happen again.

First, thank you very much for coming. I am really talking about a trip, as well as a long series of previous studies, to Kabul, RC North, RC South and RC East and other areas. I went with four of my colleagues, each of which I think are outstanding analysts in this area and will be speaking on their own: Ambassador Ronald Neumann, Michele Flournoy, Stephen Biddle and Michael O’Hanlon.

But I want to stress that what I’m going to say are my views. They are not those of my colleagues, each of whom are very capable of expressing their own views.

We did have the support of ISAF during this trip, but we set the schedule as to who we wanted to talk to and where we wanted to go. It was not a trip where there was any effort made to develop any kind of party line or to somehow educate us in the sense of trying to establish an ISAF or U.S. position. We did meet with a very wide range of U.S., allied and Afghan officials. I am not going to name any or to attribute any views to them. I think all of you must realize, given what’s happened over the last two weeks, that perhaps the last thing we need is more tension and controversy around personalities. And I think we need to be extraordinarily careful in attributing positions to individuals that are not theirs. And I will leave it to them to speak.

But I’m going to focus on three areas that emerged as critical problems during our trip. One is the broader political situation and the impact of the election, which will occur in the spring of 2014, well, with some level of confidence. The second is what is a relatively rapid set of changes in the assessment of the security situation, the way we will approach the strategy and in the way we will approach the development of the Afghan national security forces. And the third are the problems that are emerging in economic aid, in governance and in economic stability inside Afghanistan as we move toward transition.

Let me begin with the situation surrounding the election. It is already clear that this is going to be a time of very deep tension. It is something where everyone we talked to was concerned, sometimes frightened, of what might happen, because the election might not occur, because it might be manipulated, because it might not produce leadership and because it might not produce unity. It didn’t much matter whether it was Americans in the field, our allies or Afghans. That concern was a universal.

There were questions about the role that President Karzai might play in seeking to choose a successor, but there were many questions about how you could forge a coalition, about what candidate could do a better job or a good job of leading. And it was quite clear that no one as yet had picked out how a coalition might be shaped and there was no one in the lead. And there were great reservations about moving too quickly and taking positions too early that might lead to problems. What was in many ways more of a concern, however, was the focus on the way the election would be held, on having the best possible, the most secure, the widest possible election, with the best identification cards, the best commission and the best complaints group.

The focus far too often was on the election per se and not what would happen after the election, how a new leader would take over, would be able to govern, how you could deal with rapid changes in ministers, which are an almost inevitable result, in the middle of a critical period in 2014, with most U.S. combat troops outside the country, with major problems in expenditure. It is nice to focus on a perfect election. It is much wiser to focus on an adequate government and effective leadership and meeting the needs of the Afghan people. And I did not see that focus at almost any level.

One other problem that was quite clear was the extent to which Afghans really did not understand the degree to which support is beginning to wane for continuing the funding, for continuing this conflict, for supporting them after 2014. In many cases, the argument was made that Afghanistan is more important to the United States than it is to the Afghans. This is an argument which I suppose you have to visit the country to fully understand, but it is a dangerous argument, and it is one where the Afghans need to fully understand some realities.

There were Afghans – and I should make this point clearly – that did highlight the fact that they face serious security and economic challenges, that there might be a crisis in the economy and the ANSF. There were Afghans which saw the peace process as a major area of uncertainty. And I think in general, there was, on the part of the Americans we talked to, people from other countries and the Afghans, great concern that the peace negotiations might turn out to be hollow and little more than an extension of war by other means. There was very little faith that the negotiations could produce a stable or meaningful result, much as many people wanted that result as a solution.

I will not belabor the subject of Pakistan, but I would say that if there was anyone who felt that Pakistan was changing its behavior relative to the sanctuaries and the support of given insurgent groups and the behavior of the ISI, they were almost universally among the small minority deeply committed to having some kind of stable peace before the end of 2014, and it seemed to be much more a triumph of hope over experience or the evidence. I would like to believe that Pakistan will change, just as I would like to believe that the Taliban will change. But if the indicators are there, we did not see them on this trip.

There were Afghans who were firmly worried about what will happen as they have to manage the money that comes from aid if, indeed, the goal of giving the Afghan government at least 50 percent of that aid to manage is met. As is, I think, clear from the Department of Defense reporting and the reporting from the Afghan special inspector general, it is fairly clear that there has been no significant improvement in the problem of corruption or power brokering.

In the reality, the problem you have in Afghanistan is you have in many ways the shell of a democracy, a legislature which is more a form of career than it is of substance, a structure where the president still controls virtually all of the money that goes through the government and virtually all the use of money is through ministries which basically can bypass or avoid the appointed governor at the district or provincial level or combine that with power brokering. And that is going to be a massive problem as we shift towards the financial and budgetary aspects over the coming year. The fact is that at some point in the next 18 to 24 months, a country where virtually all of the aid money has been spent around and outside the central government will, one way or another, either have to be spent through that government or under conditions where we do not have military or civilians in the field. The PRTs are already folding back. The ambitious plans to have consulates are being collapsed. The presence and the ability to monitor what is happening, which is already remarkably weak, will be in many cases simply not there. And these are critical issues.

I think that this, because we cannot change many aspects of that, requires us to really start talking to the Afghans in a different way. It is one which is going to require a great deal of diplomacy, particularly up to the election. But we need to make it clear there is conditionality here. What the Afghan government does over the period between now and the election, and particularly after it, will, in the real world, determine, to an amazing degree, whether we do or do not support this effort beyond 2014.

There already are some tools that would make this possible. The Afghan government laid out a long series of reforms and steps forward at the Tokyo conference. It is never going to happen that all of those steps are met or are met on time, but some of them can be met, and some of them have to be if the money is to be used either in aid or in developing the Afghan national security forces.

If we are going to have a bilateral security agreement, it has to be where we have clearly defined the terms. It has to be clear that we can actually perform the mission in that agreement, what the limits are. It is not something that can be vague or open-ended. And we need to define the conditions for military aid and presence and for economic presence and aid in very clear terms. This does not mean ultimatums. It doesn’t mean being rigid. But it does mean we have to make it clear. We can’t simply wait for the Afghans to discover that these conditions will be enforced simply because of the internal political dynamics in the United States and outside Afghanistan among other allied countries.

Now, let me turn to the security issue. And here, one of the striking, I think, differences in this visit was the extent to which you can see an improvement in dealing with the metrics, the strategy and the way in which the Afghan national security forces are being shaped. I put this up here because if you look at the 1230 report – you can’t look at the ISAF side anymore; the graphics have all been deleted – you will see something rather striking: There is not a single metric in the 1230 report that shows an improvement in the security situation since the time the surge began in 12009 (sic). If you look at the U.N. reporting on casualties or the ANSO reporting from NGOs, the situation is more of a warning.

On the left, you see what happened in Iraq. And if any of you have followed the news today, that has not led to stability or peace. On the right is what happened in Afghanistan. That low level of combat incidents or significant incidents you see on the left is 2009, when the surge began. The estimate on the right is what happened in 2012, through the last set of reporting. It doesn’t matter which indicator you use. The revised measure – which was, frankly, systematically manipulated by PR people – on, basically, enemy-initiated attacks, when recalculated, showed a negative trend in the course of the last year and had to be removed. In every other area, you simply did not see progress. But that, I think, exaggerates the problem.

There is no unclassified way as yet. ISAF is re-evaluating its metrics. We were shown some very interesting and, I think, far better ways of dealing with this, ways which looked at the economic and governance dimension and at a range of security indicators, but those are not yet released in any form or decided on.

But this is a map which shows the transfer of responsibility. And what is, I think, important about this map is the white areas are the higher-risk areas or the areas where we have so little presence we cannot make an assessment of the security situation. The orange areas, which are tranche four, are the areas where there was a significant enough security problem so transfer was delayed. They do coincide in general with other indications of insurgent activity or instability.

I think that the key here, however, is that in much of the country, you do have relative security. When you break this out in detail, you see that most of the population centers have a relatively high degree of security, and what you also see is that in many areas where there is an uncertain situation and security, you have a steady growth of the Afghan local police and an important growth in the presence of forces which, regardless of the kinds of system that you get in the CUAT or CM rating system, have proved to be relatively effective in defensive roles and in holding and protecting the population or critical routes.

That has led to a change in strategy which I think we will see announced probably in much better form and with much more detail than I can, but it was made clear to us on an unclassified level that what you are seeing is a shift towards a layered defense.

It is not the idea that we can somehow defeat the insurgency in the field. The reality is, with the Pakistani sanctuaries, given the terrain, given the tribal and other alignments in the east and in the south, there will be areas outside the population centers which will certainly remain under insurgent control through the end of 2014 and maybe under insurgent control or influence for years to come.

No one is estimating at this point that this is a move toward some easy or quick victory. No one is estimating that the sanctuaries in Pakistan will disappear. No one feels that the insurgents will not have a campaign this season or that they do not calculate, at least within many elements of the insurgency, they can ride out our departure, and the general conclusion is that they feel they are winning. Whether that is correct or not is something we will find out over time, but it is not a situation where we can count on an easy or quick collapse.

A lot will depend on how well the Afghan forces perform. One basic shift, which has already begun to occur, we are not generating forces. We’re not trying to get the perfect manning. We’re not trying to get the perfect equipment levels, have the right building or have everybody go through the right training. The focus now is on whether the forces are effective in the field and can do the job they have to do, do it their way, not our way, in terms of creating the force.

That is not something that we believe I think at any level can be accomplished by the end of 2014 with a transfer and an end of a major aid and assistance mission. Almost regardless of who we talk to, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Finance are going to require years of continued aid and support if they are to have an effective structure. Moving from successful combat units to the core level operations of the ANA is going to require continued presence and training for years beyond 2014. Key elements of – creating the Air Force will at best be ready at 2016, and they will be dependent on U.S. air power at least in the interim for emergencies. Areas like fire support, intelligence, logistics, maintainers, counter- IED, medevac, the ability if something seriously goes wrong to rapidly reinforce – these are all areas where they will need some form of limited assistance after 2014.

I should stress the limit. It is not something where the ANSF is broadly ineffective. There will be problems with power brokers, with corruption. There will be areas and units which fail. That has been true of the order of battle of every country and every war in history. And it is important to remember that when we look back to Kasserine Pass in World War II or Task Force Smith in Korea, that we have a few imperfections of our own in force structure.

But the fact is we’re talking about creating effective corps, we’re talking still about trying to make elements of the Afghan police relatively effective, and we are now talking about adding to that 352,000 men some 40,000 ALP as a critical form of that layered defense.

We also are talking about a reality where the nominal cost of this effort is $4.1 billion a year, but that does not fund and sustain 352,000 in the ALP. To get to that number and sustain it through 2018, the rough estimate is 4.8 billion (dollars). To create a really robust pattern of mobility, fire support, substitutes for combat air power, bring the force to readiness would cost some 5.1 (billions dollars) to 5.7 billion (dollars) a year, depending on how much equipment is left over and transferred.

This is a matter of money. It is a matter of careful planning and assessment of how that money can be spent and what it should be spent on. I would have to say too, it is time for transparency and a move away from conceptual slogans and totals of manpower money. To justify this, you have to explain it, you have to determine where it comes from, and you have to make it conditions-based.

There is, fortunately, in all of this process, the conclusion that the remnant of al-Qaida activities can largely be defeated within the transition period, so that as a key criteria will have lost at least some of its urgency, at least in Afghanistan. What will happen in the rest of the world and the region is a different story.

In terms of the ALP, it is a local militia. It is not going to be a model of human rights. It will not be immune to tribalism. It will not be immune to abuse. But the choice is in many ways that or the Taliban. There is a very broad set of conclusions that this is the force that the Taliban fears most because it stays in the local areas, because it resists them actively, because it limits their ability to use intimidation, and also because the motives are very different from a police force in many ways, recruited from the outside, subject in many areas to corruption or political pressure from the district chief of police. And one of the things to remember here, before you criticize all of the uncertainties surrounding a militia, is being abused by the uniformed police and a group of strangers is not necessarily better than having to deal with a local police force, which at least, to some extent, is tied to the area and the community.

This is an imperfect world, and it is certainly going to be an imperfect Afghan national security force. But it is interesting to watch what’s already happened and how cheap it is. Building up this force, which already is 30,000 men inside the 4.1 billion, to raise that to 45,000 costs $150,000 more a year. Now, these estimates are rough, but compared to the AUP and the ANA, that is a minor figure.

The goal basically is that the ALP will protect some 17 percent of the population scattered throughout the country, much of it in areas where you simply do not have a large enough army or police to cover low-level insurgencies.

There are other figures. One of them I frankly could not get explained to me, but the claim was that it would support local governance efforts covering 31 percent of the population or 9.8 million. Like a lot of claims in Afghanistan, this is something which perhaps deserves a little pressure from the media and Congress. It is not a figure I could fully understand. But I did see and I visited yet again ALP units. Not only that, what you begin to see is once you start this in the field, Afghans that don’t like the Taliban start taking really resistance and weapons into their own hands. It’s not the Sons of Iraq, but it is real. And at least in two critical areas, in the east and the south, it has had a major impact. But there are no certainties here.

There is also a question about the size of U.S. advisers. I have to say that from my own experience dating back to Vietnam, watching what happened in Iraq and other countries, there is a tendency to assume that the military want too much by way of manpower. That is a debate in many ways between 8,000, 10,000 and 12,000.

My own feeling is we are rushing towards the development of the ANSF as we did in Vietnam and Iraq far too quickly. We are racing our fences for political purposes and to get out and to reduce the cost. If you want this to work, I think those recommended manpower levels which have emerged from the military side are the absolute minimal. Without, say, 10,000 Americans in the field, without roughly a thousand to 1,250 Italians and Germans in the west and the north, there is no way that you will have enough advisory presence to cover all of the major gaps within the ANSF and to be out in the field and able to work at the core level. You will have to abandon the brigade and the kandak level in the course of the forced cuts that are coming, but to abandon the core level presence, to avoid having a sort of four-corner presence in Afghanistan in the field, can easily be a recipe for failure. We’ve done it twice before, and the results have not been good. And while people often blame the Congress for not funding the ARVN, I would suggest that some of you might want to pick up the official U.S. Army volume called “The Final Years” and see how much of the ARVN’s problems were not the fault of the Congress and were the fault of rushing out, insufficient aid and insufficient advisers.

Whether we can do this or not politically, I don’t know. But one thing is very clear: We really need to start debating this in honest terms in the U.S., not simply having it be something that appears in the press as a rather arcane debate over zero, 6,000, 8,000, 12,000 without any conceivable regard to what the people do, what they cost or why they’re needed.

And there is a deep debate here within the White House that can scarcely be a secret to any of the people here who have followed this issue. It is not a debate which has been made open, which has surfaced, which has justified positions. It is not something where you can afford to blunder on without having a much clearer, honest review within the Congress and by the American people if we are going to stay committed to this war.

The final issue I’d like to deal with and one I think is actually more serious than the Afghan national security force is the economics of transition. I have to say that I’ve watched USAID and State Department people in PRTs in the field in both Afghanistan and Iraq. And frankly, I am amazed at times with what they can accomplish and what young men and women have done in the field with very limited resources.

But there is a problem. In the PRTs, it has often been expediency. At the national level, it has been development almost in the abstract and very project-oriented without regard to security issues; to the fact that the countries are at war; without proper justification in terms of an assessment of economic planning, 10 years, 11 years, 12 years on without any meaningful measures of effectiveness; with claim after claim which cannot be justified on the basis of any meaningful data the minute you ask where it comes from; figures like GDP growth, increases in per capita income, nonsense data on educational statistics, figures on improved medical services based on a metric like being within an hour to an hour and a half’s walk of a medical facility. By that standard, we could eliminate Medicare and Medicaid because virtually every American is within at least an hour and a half or an hour bus ride or drive of a medical facility.

We can’t afford to go into a period where we start cutting aid, as we have in the past. These figures come from USAID. They show you how rapidly we have cut aid every time we’ve had a similar model in the past. But the problem here is what has happened in reality in Afghanistan if you ignore the claims for aid.

There’s a World Bank study I would commend to all of you. It’s hidden away somewhere in the analysis section of the World Bank’s Afghan section. It is not given the attention it should or the publicity. It’s called “Afghanistan in Transition: Looking Beyond 2014.”

The problem that you come up with is exemplified by this next slide. You may not be able to read all of it, but frankly, that red line is aid as a percent of the Afghan GDP. It has often exceeded 100 percent of the GDP. As we cut that aid, it threatens every aspect of stability within the elite that is affected by a market-driven economy. If you look at the Afghan national budget on the right – and these figures come from the GAO, not the World Bank – only 10 percent of the Afghan budget today is self-funded. If we go into transition focusing only on development aid without being ready to deal with the stability impact, we can tear down all the other aspects of what we are trying to do in Afghanistan.

It’s also interesting to see the World Bank estimate. If you look at aid to date, only 12 percent of the aid has gone through the Afghan government, and we now have a 50 percent goal for having the Afghan government spend the money.

It is also interesting that looking at survey data, 75 to 95 percent of the aid that went through the Afghan government budget stayed inside Afghanistan, and the World Bank found that 10 to 25 percent of the aid that did not go through the government actually reached Afghanistan. Those represent, as SIGAR has pointed out, an almost incredible level of waste, a lack of control of money, an emphasis on spending rather than justification of the program or measures of effectiveness, but we can’t pull the plug on much of that money and not see it have a massive impact on Afghanistan.

The nominal case is 4 to 6 percent growth in Afghanistan. That sounds good, but the problem is most growth in Afghan’s economy is dictated by rainfall. There are claims that there was an average of 9 percent growth during recent years, and the implication is it was aid. Look at the World Bank study. That is an average based on the increase in rainfall as it affected a more stable agricultural economy. It had zero to do with aid, by World Bank estimates.

The World Bank estimates that unemployment and underemployment at this point affects 56 percent of the Afghan labor force in a country where the average increase in population has exceeded any estimate to date of what development would do in job creation in the labor force. Demographics are a critical issue.

The good news is that only 6 to 10 percent of the population has evidently really been impacted by aid and military spending to date, by the World Bank estimate. I put it at about twice that, but it’s an intuitional guess, not an assessment. The difficulty is that 6 to 12 percent are the people with the guns, with the jobs, with the leadership, with the elite. They are already the people who are pouring some 3 to 6 billion dollars out of the country a year and where there is beginning to be a serious capacity drain already as people frightened by the impact of our withdrawal are beginning to leave the country. That is a critical stability issue.

And as we look at the cost of the security structure, again, given all of the uncertainties involved here, the Afghan ability to finance the budget they are going to have to deal with the GDP is sufficiently sharp so that about 75 percent of their budget will remain dependent on aid through 2020. If that money doesn’t come, you can’t have an ANSF, you can’t pay for governance, you can’t put people into the field, and you can’t support it.

And we have not addressed this, we have no buffer for stability, we have not adjusted the aid levels, and we have not honestly assessed this issue within the U.S. government or AID, and it cannot be assessed by the U.N. within UNAMA for a variety of political reasons, which prevent them from being able to assess it. And having talked to the people at UNAMA, I cannot blame them. The grief that they have been given by member countries refusing to report, refusing to comply simply makes it impossible for this aspect of the U.N. system to function.

So let me conclude. We may have to leave Afghanistan because of the failures in the political process, the ANSF or the economy. We may have to do it because we have higher strategic priorities or because of growing financial constraints in the United States. But I did come away that we have a reasonable chance of avoiding failure, of creating Afghanistan good enough in some form if we do move forward. We will have to test it every year. It will have to be conditions-based. But snatching failure from the jaws of uncertainty does not strike me as a particularly successful strategy or wise approach. We should at least give the election, this campaign season in 2014 a chance.

If we have to leave, it should be based on an honest assessment of the cost-benefits in the Afghan War. We should not stumble out because we failed to honestly assess the situation, and we should not run for the exit simply because in today’s domestic environment, it is politically convenient.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

Ladies and gentlemen, since I am here alone, let me – and you can look around and see how many people there are. Could we make it a question, not a statement? Could you please identify yourself when I call on you? And a question does tend to end in a question mark. And let’s recognize that given my age, if it has one part, you might get a much better answer. (Laughter.)

Please. Could you wait for the microphone? And do identify yourself.

Q: Hi, Doug Brooks. I’m on the board of the Afghan-American Chamber of Commerce. There’s a lot of weight or a lot of belief that the mining sector will take off and sort of a reliance or expectation that that will start producing income for the Afghan government. Is the security situation such that mining or large-scale operations could commence in Afghanistan?

MR. CORDESMAN: Well, there are two problems here. First, at present, no. Second, the logistics and lines of communication do not exist. Third, mining development takes time. And the problems we face that are most critical are the ones that are going to occur before 2018, and the assessments that are made of when mining could produce major benefits tend to be 2020 to 2021, and they’re laid out in considerable detail.

Now, if you could have an instant mine, an instant road, instant security and instant demand and they’d pay up front, all of that would be wonderful. But if any of you believe that’s going to happen, I’d like to discuss your investment portfolio after this lecture. (Laughter.)

The gentleman here.

Q: I’m Harlan Ullman. Tony, as you know, honesty and objectivity have not always been long suits of our government. It seems to me that what you have described here is obviously an explosive mixture that’s liable to cause a huge implosion. Assuming that your aspirations for hope are not met and things do not go well, what’s plan B for the United States? What should we do if, in fact, we do get out, aid is cut back and Afghanistan is left to its own devices?

MR. CORDESMAN: If it is that bad, you have to realize that your decisions strategically as – in many ways, Afghanistan and Central Asia simply don’t matter. You have other priorities, and that has to be the decision, and it may be ultimately one forced on you by the pressures in the Gulf or in Asia. But that’s what will happen if that’s your scenario.

I think, though, in reality, two things really have to be kept in mind. This is not cheap or risk-free, but moving to the point where in 2014 we can see whether it really is worth staying is not that much of an incremental cost. Among other things, we just can’t get all of the equipment out that fast. So there is a reason to follow the profile we have and see whether we should reinforce it.

The other thing is that in some levels, if you are forced to deal with, say, a failed election or a breakdown in the economy that you can’t easily solve, it’s not clear that if you don’t abandon the situation totally, the Taliban and insurgents necessarily win. In the real world, much of the political structure of Afghanistan is already essentially power brokers and regional. If they can work out some arrangement where they will support among the equivalent, I guess, of warlords and regional political structures, you may be able to hold the country together in a form which will at least keep it from being dominated by an insurgent or an extremist faction. I don’t find that option something that I would see as desirable, but it may be strategically viable.

And one thing we really have to honestly understand – if anybody here believes that we are going to have this country suddenly emerge as a model of democracy, women’s rights, human rights, development or any of the other noble goals in the Afghan compact, I’m sorry. It isn’t going to happen. The question is how much progress can we continue and retain and where we can do it with reasonable influence. But I think the conclusion that many Afghans I’ve talked to, and indeed, most of the people who work this country have made is a correct one. Afghanistan is a quarter of a century away from the goals that were set in the Afghan compact, and we need to be honest about that if we are going to work with the real Afghanistan and not the illusion that you sometimes have in discussions of what Afghanistan should be, as distinguished from what it can be.

Yes.

Q: Harvey – (clears throat) – excuse me. Harvey Sloane. I’m with the Eurasian Medical Education Program. This is about Afghan women. I’m going over to Kabul in about a week and a half to work with a colleague who’s been there 10 years in developing a school for Afghan girls, and then through private means, he’s been able to place them in the United States in various schools and colleges. It’s really worked very well. His dream is to quadruple –

MR. CORDESMAN: I’m sorry, do we have a question?

Q: Yeah, it is. On the other hand, there was an interview by a woman in the Parliament, 28 years old, that Karzai would be working with the Taliban, and she didn’t see any great future for women. What is your idea?

MR. CORDESMAN: I think you’re going to see a very mixed society. In much of the east and in the south, you still have a tribal structure. The good news in terms of gender equality is it’s not going to be very nice to be a man. If – (laughter) – being shot is very unpleasant. Not having a job is unpleasant. Not being able to afford a home or get married in a society that’s rigid in its social customs isn’t very happy either. Are women going to have rights, be given the equality they deserve? No. In parts of the north, will the situation be completely different? In urban areas, will many of the reforms and progress in schools be sustained? Some – in many areas, they will. But Kandahar will not be Herat, and Kabul will be caught somewhere in between. This is one of the most poor, underdeveloped, weakly governed countries in the world, by every metric, regardless of who’s doing the assessment. Progress is going to be limited and uncertain, and it is going to require a lot of NGO effort simply to keep what’s going going. And we need to accept that if we are going to really preserve what exists, much less make progress.

Let’s see, back there.

Q: Hi, Frank Keller of the World Bank. You noted the NGO effort. Could you speak a bit about the extent to which you anticipate insurgents perhaps increasingly increasing their targeting of attacks on residual international organizations, NGOs, INGOs, humanitarian aid organizations, trying to continue to work post-2014 in Afghanistan? Thank you.

MR. CORDESMAN: A kinder and gentler sort of Taliban. It isn’t working out all that well in the field. But in a lot of areas, it’s just become politically convenient to not directly challenge NGOs. Take the money and run, effectively. I just don’t know how bad it’s going to be. But what is clear is by the end of 2014, virtually all NGOs in the field are either going to have to work through Afghans or be out in the field at risk without any protection other than the Afghan national security forces. And depending on how bad things get in the east and the south or in the scattered areas in central and northern Afghanistan where the insurgents exist, there will be targeting.

The best indicator we have to date is one of the most negative statistics that occurred between 2011 and 2012. There was a 700 percent increase in attacks on Afghan officials, according to the U.N. estimate, and I haven’t heard anyone deny that those figures are approximately correct. They will target whatever is needed as long as they are there to increase power and influence. But that may have different levels within the NGO community. If the NGOs are providing something convenient to the Taliban and insurgents, they may let them operate. If they’re seen as supporting governance, the police, outside presence, then the targeting may be direct.

The lady in the back.

Q: Michele Kelemen with National Public Radio. I know you said you didn’t want to talk about personalities, but I wonder, how worried are you about Karzai’s latest rhetoric? And do you think it’s helpful that the U.S. now has a secretary of state in John Kerry who seems to get along with Karzai?

MR. CORDESMAN: Michele, I am going to dodge around the issue. I really think that it is probably just as well that those of us who are in the analytic community do not talk about meetings, interviews and personalities.

The caution I would give all of us is this. Afghan politics are what people have described as a blood sport. They are not peaceful, and they can be violent. You don’t have bodyguards simply because of the risk of the Taliban.

And people are deeply concerned. Statements like the fact the Taliban are not our enemy might not have been any more popular with U.S. soldiers in the field than they were with senior Afghan officials. You do need to be careful as to how you communicate.

There is, as I pointed out, this gap between the belief that because of 9/11 Afghanistan is vital to us and the reality that I think is probably true on the part of many Americans that it clearly isn’t. And that leads to a gap in perceptions and attitudes.

Afghans are not people with vast experience in running complex governments. The politics of Afghanistan are also not the politics of democracy or legislative action but the politics of power brokers and money. That focuses people on sensitivity to things like night raids, the use of air power, in ways which often probably put far too much emphasis on local politics relative to the military cost of artificial barriers and restraints.

What I am saying is that we need to remember clearly here that Afghan perspectives and priorities are not, regardless of personalities, going to be our priorities and values. And we are going to have to work with that difference at many different levels, beyond the presidency, and it will be an issue almost regardless of what happens as the outcome of the election.

It is also true that we need to, if we are to persuade the Afghans that there is a reason to follow the priorities we would like to set, make it clear what our presence would be if they do move forward after 2014, be realistic about what can be done in terms of aid and assistance. There needs to be a dialogue not simply based on conditionality but showing the Afghans that what they do matters.

It is also a matter, frankly, of educating people far more as to what it will take from them to provide security and economic stability. We need a lot fewer slogans, bottom lines like 352,000. There needs to be a real effort to reach out to the Afghans at a political level and the elites and make it clear where we are headed, why we have these plans and what the numbers of manpower and dollars are for.

Gentleman –

Q: Colonel Stephen Padgett. I’m currently the NATO ACT representative to the Joint Staff in the Pentagon, former commander, British forces in Afghanistan, 2005-2006. And there are lots of dire predictions about the things that could happen, would happen in the event that we stop providing and being involved to the extent that we currently are. Do you think that those are sufficiently valid for the balance that you alluded to a few moments ago, the balanced judgment that needs to be made, cost/benefits and so on, for us to be going down the right track the way that we’re going at the moment?

MR. CORDESMAN: Well, it’s a good question. And the honest truth of the matter is none of us know. I mean, this is a little like the reformation or Prohibition in the United States. It’s an experiment nobody has really done before, and you can be either optimistic or dire.

I would say, frankly, that at this point in time, the withdrawal levels planned for 2014 are irreversible. So it’s not a matter of being able to alter the judgment. I don’t think it produces dire results, frankly. I don’t think it produces a worst-case result if we go ahead with the plans that we already have, and the funding levels. If the election should really fail, if the whole structure should go back to failure or struggles between power brokers and ethnic groups, then should we go on with the rest of the effort? I would have to say no. But that seems like an unlikely case. Is the ANSF going to suddenly collapse? I don’t see anything strong enough to cause that. If anything, I think it will make progress, at least as long as we sustain this effort for the next two years.

Do we face a potentially serious economic problem? I don’t know because one of the realities here is the U.S. appropriates, but it takes 24 months to spend. So a lot of the aid money will be peaking just about now. You won’t get a rapid economic crisis. Tends to be late 2014, early 2015, or even mid-2015. And I don’t know what the impact will be.

But I do think that we have some debates building up about going from a reasonably well-planned minimum and rundown to just putting out token numbers. And that does strike me as dangerous. I don’t think that what we have planned is, at this point, in manning and assistance, that high a level. I think it’s pretty minimal. On the money, until we get some transparency as to where those numbers actually came from and how they’re going to be spent, I think, frankly, you have to go with what the numbers are today. Should they stay that way, I would hope that if we have learned anything from Iraq and Afghanistan, it is the United States government should never again be allowed to become involved in what is armed nation-building without an explicit statement of what the money is, where it’s going, why it’s going there and with reasonable measures of effectiveness.

And it would not break my heart, particularly in the case of USAID, speaking of conditionality, if the Congress passed legislation which said, if AID doesn’t make good on effectiveness measures in the next year, there will be automatic cuts in the spending level. Ten years of doing nothing is a bit long even in the economic aid business.

Arnaud.

Q: Arnaud de Borchgrave, CSIS. Tony, what makes you think that Congress is going to be any more willing to extend aid than it was at the end of the Vietnam War, when it suddenly cut it off?

MR. CORDESMAN: I don’t think it did suddenly cut it off. I think it had very good reason to cut it off, because when you started looking at the reporting coming in – and I was in the Pentagon and actually dealing with that reporting at the time – if you don’t create a good case for the spending, the Congress will react, not always wisely or at the rate it should, but it’ll do it.

I think a lot does depend on how well we justify the next two years. It is a major issue in leadership, in communication, in improved planning and justification. Now, given our own fiscal situation, Arnaud, I cannot promise you that you will get a wise, bipartisan and well- balanced congressional approach to anything, but at least we should try.

Let’s see. This gentleman.

Q: Hello. I’m Patrick Hickey with GAO. And I read in The Open Press last year that General Allen considered the so-called green-on-blue attacks a significant strategic short-term and longer-term threat to our transition plans because it – first the attacks were peaking, the Taliban – whatever the source of the attack, the Taliban was quick to claim credit, and it might – and it was our – undermining confidence between our soldiers and the Afghan soldiers.

My question is for you on your recent trip. Have you got a sense that we’ve come up with an effective way to deal with that threat, perceived or real, in terms of dealing – in terms of keeping potential adviser-contributing countries on board with our post-2014 plans for, you know, continuing to support at an advisory level the ANSF?

MR. CORDESMAN: Well, you’ve done a lot to the extent you can do it. You created a Guardian Angel program, so basically we aren’t exposing forces in the way we did before. You’ve changed the vetting system; you’ve changed a lot of the local security system. At least at present, the number of green-on-blue attacks has gone way down. But part of that may be tactical, because since they are seeing us leave, a lot of the pace of attacks has shifted to green- on-green attacks, and the problem is Afghan soldiers or policemen killing Afghan soldiers or policemen.

You have adopted a very careful plan and strategy for trying to deal with a reduction beyond 2015. Some of that may be excessive because you are cutting way back on the number of consular positions, forward positions. But I think that you are talking about preserving Italian, German and U.S. presence in the field in ways in which take into account the issue of personal security very carefully.

But one thing about the Taliban and any insurgency, when you find an area of acute vulnerability in the press and in publicity and you can exploit it at limited cost, you’re going to do it. And there is no way you can put people into the field in wartime and not take casualties. There’s no way you can stop, if you want effective diplomats and military advisers, casualties from occurring. And if you make the goal a hundred percent safety, you have established an outcome which is likely to produce a hundred percent failure.

And if we solve this one at immense cost, you’ll see what you see in Iraq today: the anniversary bombings, if you can call it that, a vast outpouring of attacks in one day. You’ll see that if you can put a bomb near a U.N. headquarters or a girls’ school, you get immense amounts of publicity, and you will do that, because you are fighting a political and a psychological war. And one way or another, whether it is green on blue or it is that form of attack, that will go on as long as there is an active insurgency with anything like the strength it has today. It is very nice to talk about counterinsurgency, but insurgency has options as well.

The gentleman back.

Q: Hi, Colin Christopher, World Organization for Resource Development and Education. We’re coming out with a directory later this summer that documents Afghan civil society countering extremism from within a religious context. You talked about the overlapping interests of American and coalition forces, CSOs and the insurgents. I’m wondering what those overlapping interests may be where all three of those parties can agree without talking that this is something that’s acceptable for them. What are those interests?

MR. CORDESMAN: I’m not sure I understand the question because in most cases, you don’t have that synergy.

Q: (Off mic.)

MR. CORDESMAN: Well, there are plenty of cases. I mean, Afghanistan is a remarkably diverse place. But rather than seeking perfect synergy, you seek the opportunities you can where you can. Civil society will matter in a lot of urban areas. It’s a very dangerous term in a lot of rural and tribal areas. Where most of the population is, you’re going to have to make choices that are based on what that group is, what the mix is, who the leader is, how the power brokers operate. Is it a narco-economy? Is it a service economy? These are realities you’ve got to deal with. And the minute you start talking about national slogans or concepts, you’ve sort of left Afghanistan, and you’re living in some interesting ideal.

The gentleman in the center there.

Q: Paul Lundberg (sp), adviser to UNDP in Afghanistan. You said that there will be the need to – for NGOs to continue to expand their work in order just to sustain the – any gains that have been made in the past.

MR. CORDESMAN: No, let me – I’m sorry, let me just correct you. I didn’t say anything of the sort. I think it would be nice if NGOs can sustain part of their effort. But I never said for a moment that they could increase that effort. I think in many areas, it is quite apparent that they probably already are pulling back sharply. And that was certainly one of the messages that we got from UNAMA when we were there.

Q: OK, that was my question because if the Tokyo accord requires foreign countries to increase their allocations to the – to the government, was – did anyone talk about making more funds available for nongovernment development activities?

MR. CORDESMAN: I don’t think it’s a matter of more funds. The question is which programs you sustain, and are they in country? I think the World Bank is quite correct that if 80 percent of the money that’s going into aid never reaches Afghanistan or pours right back out of Afghanistan into Dubai, the issue is not the total amount of spending; it’s absorption capability, management and the purpose involved.

And let me say that there are quite a number of NGO monuments to futility scattered throughout Afghanistan, buildings that should never have been put up, good causes that lasted for six months and similar efforts.

On everybody’s part, a certain amount of better planning, wisdom and more demanding standards – and you know, it really would be nice if NGOs would comply with Ministry of Finance laws and actually report where they’re spending the money, and it wouldn’t hurt me at all if NGOs, to (enter ?) the country, were required to actually issue a financial statement and a report on where the money goes and how much of it reaches Afghanistan, because it isn’t simply phony religious charities and cults which do a superb job of raising money and wasting it.

The gentleman back there. And ladies and gentlemen, I’ve already kept you over time, so let me make this the last question.

Q: Thank you. Craig Carp (sp), Silk Road Consulting. I recall the ability of Afghans on both sides to take a – to take a punch during the Soviet and the communist war, both – on both sides – to take casualties. I also recall that the Taliban were able to enter Kabul only because the Afghans in Kabul, the government there, were basically engaged in civil war against one another and that they were only able to penetrate the non-Pashtun areas with direct support from the government of Pakistan. So I note that the missing – the missing word, in my view, from your report, is “Pakistan.” And the question is do you think that we’re going to leave sufficient forces in Afghanistan to provide enough of a tripwire to deter that sort of intervention?

MR. CORDESMAN: That Pakistan will maintain the sanctuaries, that it will not change its behavior, that the ISI will continue to do what the ISI has been doing – I hope that assumption proves wrong. But it is not a matter of dependence on Pakistan changing its behavior. You cited one historical example, but let me give you another one. Najibullah survived magnificently as long as he had the money to fund the Afghan forces, and the key aspect of that was not the regular forces but the fact that being able to buy militias off in the field provided regional stability. So I think it is somewhat dangerous to assume that there is a parallel, that the Taliban is going to come rushing back.

The other thing is one would hope, but one can never be sure, that when almost all of the Afghans you talk to mention they can’t repeat that mistake of going to war with each other, that some of them, at least, are serious. But again, the election and the coalition that follows will be a key indicator. We are going to have some form of strategic warning. And if it goes badly, that may mean we have to change our policy. If it goes well, along with this campaign season and the ANSF, it’s a very different story.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. (Applause.)

(END)