Paul D. Miller
Pessimism abounds in
Yet the stabilization and reconstruction effort in
Many analysts critical of the war effort have drawn misguided lessons from cartoonish and caricatured versions of Afghan history -- comparing ISAF to the armies of Alexander the Great,
The greatest threat to long-term success in
If additional U.S. and
AFGHANISTAN: THE WORLD'S WORST COUNTRY
In 2001,
The security environment in 2001 and 2002 was chaotic largely because the Afghan state had ceased to function.
With an anarchic security situation and a nonfunctional state, the Afghan economy had collapsed by the end of the Taliban's misrule. Afghans were the world's seventh-poorest people in 2001.
The humanitarian situation, in short, was catastrophic.
A DELICATE CONSTITUTION
A principal step in the Bonn process was the drafting and ratification of a new constitution, which UN advisers helped a commission of Afghans draft in 2003. The resulting document protects equal rights for men and women, individual liberty, freedom of expression and association, the right to vote and stand for office, property, and religious freedom. But the document also acknowledges
The Afghan people's reaction to the constitution was overwhelmingly positive. One member of the loya jirga (grand council of elders) convened to ratify the document said after voting for its approval that it was "99 percent based on the will of the people." A group calling itself the
After the constitution was ratified, the international community funded and administered a voter registration drive and two elections: over eight million Afghans voted in the nation's first-ever presidential contest in
Afghans continue to face challenges in their effort to institutionalize a process of peaceful political competition. The 2009 and 2010 elections were notoriously marred by fraud and low turnout. But it is important to note that power brokers, accustomed to enforcing their writ undemocratically, decided to manipulate the electoral system to serve their own interests rather than ignore it altogether, because they recognized that Afghans now embrace the new democratic constitution as the basis for their state's legitimacy. The international community must pressure the Afghan government to crack down on corruption and develop robust political parties. But to declare total failure is to ignore
REBUILDING PROSPERITY
In response to the economic and humanitarian emergency in
The result was an unheralded and dramatic success. Partly because of U.S. and international aid,
Between 2001 and 2009, almost every indicator of human development showed measurable improvement. By late 2008, 80 percent of the population had access to basic health services, up from eight percent in 2001. Also by 2008, Afghan children were being immunized against diphtheria, pertussis, and tetanus (DPT) at the same rate as children in the rest of the world and at a higher rate than in the rest of
Meanwhile, infrastructure greatly improved with international help.
The impressive growth and improvement since 2001 -- stronger than in any postconflict state in which the UN has deployed a peace-building mission since the end of the Cold War -- demonstrate that progress is achievable with robust resources and international attention. Aid dependency and a poorly diversified economy threaten
THE UN'S BLIND SPOT
After 2001, the international community's priority was to prevent the reemergence of the 1992-96 civil war between rival warlords in control of ethnic militias. UN disarmament programs, coupled with the international community's forceful diplomacy, successfully contained fighting among the warlords and prevented the country from relapsing into civil war -- an underrated achievement, especially considering the eruptions of violence during and after other international peace-building missions, such as in
The international community's strategy in regard to the warlords had a flip side, however. Because
Despite its success against the warlords, the international community failed to train enough new Afghan security forces or successfully contain the residual Taliban threat between 2001 and 2006. Early efforts to train Afghan police and reform the security sector had not achieved notable results by 2006.
ISAF was relatively small in size, it was initially confined to
The net effect of the international community's light involvement in the security sector, combined with the lack of progress on governance, became evident with the rise of the Taliban insurgency, beginning in 2005. The Taliban and other insurgents had initiated sporadic, uncoordinated attacks against international military forces and the Afghan government in the years following the Taliban's fall from power. Yet they averaged only about four attacks per day nationwide in 2003 and five per day in 2004. In
The Taliban were able to regroup and launch an insurgency because, effectively, nothing stood in their way. The Afghan government was still unable to offer services or resolve disputes, and there were too few international soldiers to secure the whole country. The state's institutional capacity remained weak, the rule of law was nonexistent, and the security services were still embryonic. "Weak governance is a common precondition of insurgencies," writes Jones, the
Critics are right to argue that the rise of the insurgency is proof that the international state-building campaign had, as of 2006, failed to build a functioning Afghan state. But the intervention did not end in 2006. A
To staff the expanded training programs and provide security while the Afghan forces were coming up to speed,
Rising violence and the persistence of a Taliban safe haven in
THE GOVERNANCE VACUUM
In one respect, the effort in
Donors similarly neglected governance programs. They pledged a total of
For example, a proposed
Similarly, the international community did not prioritize rebuilding the justice system or improving the rule of law.
As a result of these shortcomings,
Corruption was increasingly fueled by the drug trade. The poppy crop had soared to 408,000 acres in 2006 and 477,000 in 2007, and
When the crisis in governance became apparent with the rise of the Taliban insurgency in 2005 and 2006, the international community moved to bolster its governance programs. In dollar terms, the international community roughly doubled its training efforts in the Afghan civil administration and justice sectors, to
The international community paid an enormous opportunity cost by failing to play a greater role and provide sufficient resources from the start. Most observers of Afghan governance focus on Karzai's policies, behavior, and fitness for office. But any other Afghan president would face a nearly insurmountable challenge trying to enact policy through an institutional apparatus that, for all intents and purposes, does not function. Others have focused on how centralized or decentralized, institutionalized or tribalized, the Afghan government should be. But that argument is moot. The international community's interest is in making governance effective, whatever it looks like, and that is what the international community failed to invest in building after 2001.
THE ROAD TO VICTORY
The application of increased military resources and a coherent strategy almost certainly will have an effect on the Afghan battlefield if given enough time to succeed and backed by a complimentary civilian strategy. In particular, U.S. President Barack Obama should show the same flexibility toward his announced
The single greatest strategic threat is the weakness of the Afghan government. Efforts in recent years to increase the size and scope of governance-assistance efforts are a welcome gesture, but they are not enough. The Obama administration should push for a dramatically more ambitious capacity-development program, starting with a much larger civilian presence in the Afghan bureaucracy and court system.
If the international community had withdrawn from
The Afghan mission is still plagued with difficulties, in particular endemically weak institutions and a poor governance-assistance effort. But recent history has shown that, contrary to popular belief, outsiders can make a positive difference in
Foreign Affairs, January/February 2011
PAUL D. MILLER is Assistant Professor of International Security Studies at the National Defense University. He served as Director for Afghanistan in the U.S. National Security Council under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, from September 2007 to September 2009. The views expressed here are his own.
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