Travels With Nick # 2
Nick Dowling is on his way to Eastern Afghanistan – SWJ asked him to share his observations as time and Internet access permits:
Kabul is smaller than I thought it would be. It seems like more of a frontier town feel than a big crowded third world city. The streets reminded me initially of the National Urban Warfare Training Center out at Ft. Irwin… the dusty brown mud buildings… the crooked little shops with old men dressed in the classic Pashtun clothing.. goods piled in windows and on tables……. the hanging meats. That Kabul reminds me of NTC is a credit to former NTC CGs Dana Pittard and Bob Cone and their restless dedication to the training mission. The only thing NTC needs to really capture Kabul is about 5,000 Toyota Corollas… seemingly the only vehicle on the road. Kabul’s streets also illustrate that this is a town used to conquest and war. Every street is lined with walls topped with razor wire, every building a miniature fortress.
We had hoped to move straight to RC East on our first day but milair availability being somewhat sketchy and weather dependent, we were delayed and forced to overnight in Kabul. This was not a hardship. We stayed at the beautiful and luxurious Kabul Serena Hotel and dined with journalists and NGO workers at a classic Kabul hang out, the Gandamack Lodge. For the interagency crowd discussion starts at social hour, with civilians sharing perspectives and hassles over beers while the military remains tightly behind the wire. We need a whole-of-government drinking hole.
The Serena also happened to be hosting a conference with twelve Provincial Governors. In our discussions with several of the Governors, two topics were on their mind:
1) giving the Provinces more governing authority by moving away from the Kabul-centric strategy adopted in 2002
2) the fall elections and, in particular, the implications should President Karzai lose
These two questions will drive many of our discussions over the next two weeks.
Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and soft power” types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Although a veteran of print and television media interviews and publications, this is his first foray into SWJ.
