This briefing paper challenges policy makers to reconsider the flawed security policies and inadequate resources for addressing a deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan at a critical juncture in the country's political development.
Contents
I. Overview
II. Security in Afghanistan: Fragile and Deteriorating
III. Security Resources: Too Close to Minimal Effort
IV. Security Planning: Insufficiently Coordinated, Coherent or Strategic
V. Security Sector Reform: A Broken Exit Strategy
VI. So Far, So Good?
Overview
Prime Minister Tony Blair's 2003 declaration that the international community "will not walk away from" Afghanistan1 missed the real question: When will the international community really walk into Afghanistan, and make the necessary commitments and investments that will give the Afghan people a reasonable chance at building a peaceful and stable country?
The March 2004 Berlin Conference report, Securing Afghanistan's Future, diplomatically understated this point by saying that "staying too close to minimal effort for too long will adversely affect expectations and commitments of the different segments of Afghan society." Nowhere is this more true than in the security sector where the minimal investments of the international community, despite the repeated calls by President Karzai, the UN, NGOs and the Afghan people to do more, has resulted in a security situation that is deteriorating daily, and markedly worse than it was at the start of the Bonn process in January 2002.
ISAF commander Lieutenant General Rick Hillier has noted that there is a limited period of time, or a finite "security window," when Afghans can be expected to support or even tolerate the continued presence of international military forces without seeing visible benefits from that presence.2 At the level of the individual Afghan citizen, where a local commander or police officer arbitrarily jails a villager or forces a family's daughter into an unwanted marriage, where a corrupt local official extorts an unlawful tax, or where two families engage in a violent dispute over land or water rights, to date no one - Afghan or international - is likely to play a visible or effective role to redress the situation.
Where do we stand?
The international community's engagement in Afghanistan since September 11 has been characterized by two contradictory concepts. On the one hand, it is described as the first major front of a "global war on terror", suggesting a massive mobilisation of resources that has never really occurred. On the other hand, the concept of a "light footprint"3 was promoted by the UN Special Representative of the Secretary General to Afghanistan, which unfortunately ended up more accurately reflecting the very modest resources - particularly for security - donor countries actually contributed.
The US-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan have focused their attention and resources on the defeat of the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and to do this often have relied on, and thus supported, destabilising and abusive factional militias and their commanders. Addressing the broader security concerns of Afghans was left to a flawed and under-resourced Security Sector Reform (SSR) strategy and to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). ISAF, however, was never resourced to move outside of Kabul in more than a symbolic way, and when it finally did, has focused more on its own security than that of Afghans. Despite Afghanistan being widely proclaimed as NATO's highest priority, the unwillingness of NATO member states to adequately resource ISAF with troops and equipment has seriously undermined the ability of ISAF commanders to do their job effectively.
The price Afghans are paying for this light footprint in the security sector is high. One need only ask the following questions to illustrate the cost of the minimalist approach: Warlords: Are the principal factional commanders less powerful, less abusive of their fellow citizens, or less brazen in their dealings with the central government now than they were in 2002? Narcotics: Has the opium poppy crop been eliminated, reduced or even held constant since 2002? Security: Is the physical security of Afghan citizens, government officials, NGO workers, or national and international troops better now than in January 2002? Tellingly, and regrettably, the answer to all three questions is "no". The power and influence of warlords and factional commanders is much greater today than at the beginning of the Bonn process, the production of opium poppy is exponentially higher, and the security situation has deteriorated significantly. During the month of June 2004 alone, the following government officials were killed: one provincial minister was assassinated, one police chief blown up by a parcel bomb, one Afghan National Army (ANA) soldier and one translator beheaded by the Taliban, and twelve policemen and six members of the Afghan Militia Forces (AMF) killed in attacks. Attacks against NGOs and contractors have also increased - in June 2004, 14 international staff were killed compared to the 14 killed throughout all 12 months of 2003. Particularly troubling is the fact that all these attacks occurred in areas of northern Afghanistan previously considered safe.
There has also been a dramatic increase in violent attacks on election staff and facilities. During June, 16 Afghan civilians were killed by Taliban for carrying voter registration cards, two Joint Election Management Body (JEMB) female staff were killed and 11 injured when an explosive device detonated in their vehicle, one AMF guard was killed when an election vehicle was attacked, one JEMB convoy was ambushed, the homes of two election workers were attacked, and assorted IED and RPG attacks were carried out on voter registration sites. If adequate security is not provided to protect the electoral process, and election-related attacks continue to increase, the government and UNAMA will need to make the difficult decision to postpone the elections. Putting the lives of electoral staff and voters at risk by not providing them with necessary protection would be highly irresponsible.
The challenge:
June 2004 is a good time to review progress in Afghanistan as it represents the end of the Bonn Agreement's original time-frame. While most of the "deliverables" of Bonn were achieved - most notably the Emergency Loya Jirga and the Constitutional Loya Jirga - we are still a long way from realizing Bonn's core overall objective, "To end the tragic conflict in Afghanistan and promote national reconciliation, lasting peace, stability and respect for human rights in the country." This objective cannot be achieved through minimalist strategies and resources, especially in the security sector. The key issues that will need to be addressed to move from a failing to a successful security policy are as follows:
Planning and Coordination: insufficient. The nature of policy-making in Afghanistan has too often suffered from "policy reductionism", where the nature and extent of the problem is simplified to make the problem appear more manageable. The security threats in Afghanistan are complex and multi-faceted, however, and simplistic solutions will fail. To ensure unity of effort and maximize the effective use of all assets, the Government of Afghanistan and its international partners must ensure that currently disconnected and conflicting security initiatives are more effectively coordinated as part of a single, shared, overall political strategy. Shared plans, in turn, will facilitate more effective coordination at the international, regional, national and provincial levels.
International investment: inadequate. The international community as a whole is failing to provide the necessary leadership, resources, programmes and military forces required to bring sustainable peace to Afghanistan. One indicator: Afghanistan has one of the lowest international-troop-to-population ratios - counting both the Coalition and ISAF - of any major recent international intervention over the past decade (e.g., Bosnia, Kosovo, and East Timor). It is time to move away from a minimalist approach designed to avoid failure, to a better-resourced strategy designed to achieve success. Security sector reform: broken down. Progress in all SSR programmes has been limited - and in some, almost entirely absent. There are a variety of reasons for the lack of progress, including failure of the nations responsible for the various "pillars" to exercise effective leadership, commit the necessary resources or address closely related issues systemically, forcefully and imaginatively. Serious consideration should be given to moving away from the discrete pillars and lead donor approach as it narrows the scope of reform and is too dependent on the competence of the lead donor. SSR is the international military's ultimate exit strategy in Afghanistan; anything less than full commitment by all parties, national and international, should be unacceptable.
Institution-building and Government Ownership: mostly missing. Much more attention must be given to reforming, restructuring and strengthening the Afghan government institutions that are essential both to manage its security forces and to perform other critical government functions. It is important that the government demonstrate strong leadership in pushing a reform agenda and assert increasing responsibility over Afghanistan's security planning and institutions.
*Michael Bhatia, a Marshall Scholar and doctoral candidate at St. Antony's College, University of Oxford, is the author of War and Intervention: Issues for Contemporary Peace Operations (2003). Kevin Lanigan, an attorney with the Washington, DC law firm, Hogan & Hartson, and a major in the US Army Reserve, served in Afghanistan with the Coalition Joint Civil-Military Operations Task Force (CJCMOTF) during 2002-03, and later in 2003 as a civilian consultant with The Asia Foundation assisting with the Constitutional Loya Jirga. Colonel (ret.) Philip Wilkinson, OBE, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Defense Studies, King's College, London, led the development of UK and NATO doctrine on peace support and civil-military operations.
Footnotes:
1 In October 2001, Blair declared, "To the Afghan people, we make this commitment. The conflict will not be the end. We will not walk away, as the outside world has done so many times before. We will assemble a humanitarian coalition alongside the military coalition." Reid, T.R., "Blair Denies Split with Bush over War," The Washington Post A26 (Nov. 22, 2001).
2 Interview with Lieutenant General Rick Hillier, Kabul, 18 June 2004.
3 In early 2002, SRSG Lakhdar Brahimi described the design of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) structure as "an integrated mission that will operate with a "light footprint," keeping the international UN presence to the minimum required, while our Afghan colleagues are given as much of a role as possible." Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan Briefing to the Security Council (Feb. 6, 2002).
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