Stabilizing Afghanistan: Proposals for Improving Security, Governance, and Aid/Economic Development
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Stabilizing Afghanistan: Proposals for Improving Security, Governance, and Aid/Economic Development Tobias Ellwood, MP Stabilizing Afghanistan: Proposals for Improving Security, Governance, and Aid/Economic Development Tobias Ellwood, MP © 2013 The Atlantic Council of the United States. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the Atlantic Council, except in the case of brief quotations in news articles, critical articles, or reviews. Please direct inquiries to: Atlantic Council 1101 15th Street NW, 11th Floor Washington, DC 20005 ISBN: 978-1-61977-031-7 Photo credit: ISAF Media April 2013 About this Report The proposals in this report are based on evidence collated from a series of visits to Afghanistan over the last six years. It brings together ideas and concerns expressed by a wide variety of personalities both from Afghanistan and from the international community. Many of the concerns and ideas were presented off the record. The conclusions drawn and the recommendations made are personal and do not reflect the position of the British government. They are meant to encourage further debate about what could be achieved by the Afghan people and the international community in the lead-up to the International Security and Assistance Force’s (ISAF) departure in 2014. About the Author Tobias Ellwood was elected Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East in May 2005. Since then, he has held a range of positions including opposition whip; shadow minister for culture, media and sport; Parliamentary private secretary to Defense Secretary Rt. Hon. Liam Fox; and Parliamentary private secretary to the Minister for Europe Rt. Hon. David Lidington in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Mr. Ellwood spent five years in the Army with the Royal Green Jackets, headquartered in Winchester and served in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Kuwait, Germany, Gibraltar, and Bosnia. He holds an MBA from Cass Business School at City University in London. Table of Contents Foreword .....................................................................................2 Executive Summary.............................................................................3 Afghan Security ................................................................................5 Afghan Governance.............................................................................7 The Insurgency............................................................................... 10 Regional Influences ........................................................................... 13 Economic Development and Reconstruction ....................................................... 16 Role of the International Community.............................................................. 20 Conclusion .................................................................................. 23 Annex 1 : Current Political Structure .............................................................. 25 Annex 2: Summary Of Afghan Constitution ........................................................ 26 Annex 3: Outline of Regional Areas And Potential Economic Hubs...................................... 28 Annex 4: Abbreviations ........................................................................ 29 1 Foreword General James L. Jones is a former Tobias Ellwood is, without a doubt, one of the premier experts on US national security advisor and Afghanistan and the surrounding region. He has spent several years both is the chairman of the Atlantic witnessing on the ground and also studying the complicated route taken by NATO in trying to forge a successful outcome to an intervention that Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center has now taken a decade’s worth of resources and human sacrifice by all on International Security. During participating countries. his long and distinguished career, he served as commander of United His report suggests, quite accurately, that by failing to adequately address the fundamental truth that stability in Afghanistan has always States European Command and been dependent on the proper balanced effort between security, supreme allied commander Europe economic development, and governance and the rule of law, the odds of (2003-06), during which NATO success (post-2014) are greatly diminished. assumed greater responsibility for security operations in Afghanistan. His report is a compelling study that should be taken up in all military and foreign policy schools, for in it the reader will find the blueprint for similar engagements for the balance of the 21st century. General James L. Jones, Jr., USMC (Ret.) Chairman, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security Atlantic Council 2 Executive Summary fghanistan’s future remains bleak. After a painful 7 ISAF may be confident that its revised security decade, all must now admit that Plan A (as outlined strategy is finally working — allowing for a formal, Ain the Bonn Accord1 and confirmed in the Afghan staged transition of responsibility to a more constitution2) has yet to create the necessary foundations competent-looking and sizable ANSF; but the for stability. Much of the international community privately insurgent threat will not be removed by force alone. acknowledges the gloomy outlook and now seeks a decent Geographic, demographic and historic factors are interval of stability after 2014 to distance itself from the working against this large conventional force, which responsibility for what might happen next as global attention commands limited discipline, equipment, and skills turns to the jihadist threat in the Sahel region of Africa. to maintain the peace without the greater consent of the population. This report assesses the progress in Afghanistan from three mutually dependent pillars for national stability — namely 7 Despite the scale of international aid that has been security, governance, and economic development poured into the country (estimated to be some $430 (and reconstruction), and it extrapolates to predict the billion), conflicting agendas, poor coordination, significance of where Afghanistan is now in the leadup to lack of overall ownership, an absence of regional ISAF’s 2014 operational withdrawal. Improvements in all economic strategies, and an ignorance of local three areas are found wanting: requirements have led to time, effort, and finances wasted on an industrial scale. Whilst there have been 7 The flawed political structure does not reflect many microlevel success stories, this commendable the ethnic diversity, regional influences, and the work is not enough to establish the fundamental precedence of local decisionmaking in Afghanistan. economic building blocks (leveraging the country’s It also lacks transparency, resulting in endemic strengths of agriculture and mineral wealth) that are corruption. Only the international community’s needed to lead the country to eventual self-reliance. presence provides the government an air of legitimacy (meaning the West is fueling the problem). Time is running out. Sensing failure, the international It also provides the country enough stability to community is suffering from “Afghanistan fatigue.” prevent civil war. Despite the removal of Osama Yet the progress on local and regional governance, bin Laden, the Taliban still have not entered into a along with the improved, if fragile, security situation and meaningful dialogue, and there is no feasible political historic precedence, all provide an opportunity for an strategy to encourage insurgents to the table. alternative solution. 1 The Bonn Agreement, http://www.afghangovernment.com/AfghanAgreementBonn.htm 2 Afghanistan Constitution, http://www.afghan-web.com/politics/current_constitution.html 3 Stabilizing Afghanistan: Proposals for Improving Security, Governance, and Aid/Economic Development The growth in size and confidence of the Afghan National revisiting one necessitates revisiting the other. Chapter 5 Security Forces (ANSF) is impressive. But it is not without considers how a review of Afghanistan’s political strategy its own challenges. Chapter 2 discusses the worrying could form the building blocks toward agreeing upon a wider ethnic divisions that are developing (with Uzbeks and strategy for the region. Tajiks joining the Afghan National Army (ANA) and southern Pashtuns dominating the Afghan National Police ANP) Long before Afghanistan developed into a nation state, the which could lead to a future ethnic feud. Per thousand land and population benefited from the transit of Euro-Asia population, the Afghan army is now the largest in the trade routes termed the Silk Road. By Asian standards it has world. As this chapter explores, there are ways in which a always been a prosperous region. In the 1950s Afghanistan sizeable part of the ANSF could be re-trained (and Official was a net exporter of agricultural produce, growing more Development Assistance [ODA] funded) as a corps of peanuts than California. After four decades of war eroding engineers to assist with the building of basic infrastructure its markets, infrastructure, and skills base, it ranks third out projects, eventually civilianized into a number of regional of 158 countries in the Global Terrorism Index. Chapter 6 construction companies. evaluates the impact of the twelve years of international aid and investment from a macro and micro perspective. With The opaque, Western-designed political structure ignores the country still reliant on external financial support