Security Vortex, Warlords and Nation Building
by Greg Mills, Terrence McNamee and Denny Lane

09.01.2006

The National Interest

http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=11952

Given the extensive discussion in recent issues of The National Interest both about nation-building and about Afghanistan (including contributions by Brent Scowcroft, Sandy Berger, Zalmay Khalilzad and, more recently, John Hulsman and Alexis Debat), we wanted to offer our own observations.

It is very easy to draw up reconstruction plans that look quite impressive on paper. When confronted by Afghanistan's veneer-thin human resources, shifting political alliances and abject poverty, many of these proposals end up being dead on arrival. So we all have to get real. Reconstruction efforts must benefit the population, not just international consultants and conference habitués. In a rural population heavily dependent on agriculture, doing so requires a narrowly targeted focus on projects with the greatest economic multiplier effect: roads, water and power.

One point missing from the discussion about the linkages between security and development so far has been mention of the ink spot strategy. Employed successfully by the British in Malaya fifty years ago and given more recent prominence by the former army officer and American academic Andrew Krepinevich, it involves focusing military effort not on hunting down the enemy, but instead securing key centers and improving conditions there so markedly that you eliminate support for an insurgency. Success then spreads slowly outwards as if from an expanding ink spot (hence the designation).

In Afghanistan, the importance of filling those "ungoverned spaces" where the Taliban has been undergoing a revival has been promoted by General David Richards, the British Commander of the current 36-nation NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

But spreading General Richards' ink spots--now labeled Afghan Development Zones (ADZs)--of stability and prosperity will require focus of effort and focus of force. There is a logical sequence of events to this strategy: First, the army goes in and cleans out areas. Second, they maintain a presence to ensure security of extant development projects by embedding security to the local army and police forces and through ISAF and the coalition's 23 provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) dotted around the country. Third, they also employ the PRTs, among other means, to roll-out concentrated spending on development projects which have a key economic and social multiplier value, such as bridges and roads (for trade) or wells and clinics (for well-being). Fourth, the foreign military offers a quick reaction spine as a guarantee against insurgent activity. Fifth, the military plays its part in ensuring top-down government-donor coordination in synch with Kabul's overall long-term development strategy.

In essence, the ink spot strategy might best be explained as being akin to expanding Kabul's Green Zone--known in more politically correct terminology as the International Zone--outwards to the entire country, where the benefits of the international presence, security, spending and government are visible and obvious for all. But since ISAF and its partners obviously do not have sufficient resources to cover the entire country all at once and certain areas are less secure than others, this begs the question: Where to go first?

It is logical that projects and geographic areas should be selected where the security-development-governance nexus is weakest, most critical and will have the greatest multiplier effect. However, this may not have the desired effect and may suck up a large amount of resources with minimal results.

Fundamentally, however, where to go has to be led by intelligence, and guided by a consistent and clear evaluation of economic activity. How to evaluate this economic potential is a formidable challenge. Inevitably, it will involve difficult political choices as communities bargain, twist and posture for development assistance. And it will be complicated by the political tension around dealing with narcotics, particularly since the bulk of the development and security attention will be directed towards the narco-provinces in Afghanistan's south.

The PRTs are an important nib through which the ink can flow at a tactical level. More than half of the PRTs are currently under U.S. stewardship, though these will fall under ISAF authority as a result of the expansion to the south and east in August and September this year. But at present there is little coherence. National directives and caveats mean that no two nation's PRTs function the same--and even the operations of American PRTs differ from each other. Whilst certain PRTs have already succeeded in sowing the seeds of development and bringing a modicum of stability in their areas, others are more akin to frontier outposts, manned by jittery soldiers with little concept of their purpose--other than manning the fort. Military force will remain the spine of the U.S. and ISAF presence in Afghanistan for some time, but its face must rapidly transfer to the PRTs, which need to become synonymous with development, not aggression. The PRTs don't have much time to prove that their intent is humane and their duration finite--or they risk looking no different than the countless foreign aggressors that came before them.

President Hamid Karzai said this June that there is "the need on behalf of the international community to reassess the manner in which this war against terror is conducted." The ink spot approach is a departure from past efforts in that it concentrates resources, seeks to unify the donor and security community, does not try to do everything (or every area) at once, and explicitly links security outcomes with development inputs. (A longer exposition on what we think constitutes a successful strategy for Afghanistan will be appearing in the forthcoming edition of Armed Forces.)

Henry Kissinger once put it: "The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose." Successfully countering the Afghan insurgency has to involve much more than winning military skirmishes. After all, counter-insurgency campaigns are won not by body counts, but by the absence of killing and satisfying citizens' hopes.

Greg Mills

The Brenthurst Foundation, Johannesburg

Special Advisor to ISAF IX

Terence McNamee

Editor, RUSI Journal,

London

(Both are drawing on first-hand experience in Afghanistan.)

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