Many attribute Nang's success to its legendary and controversial warlord governor, Gul Agha Sherzai. Sherzai is practically a caricature of the Afghan warlord: a former Muj against the Russians, he combines ruthlessness with Machiavellian political skills and a convenient comfort with corruption or worse. He would be easy to dislike if not for the fact that he keeps Nangarhar safe and increasingly prosperous while staunchly pro-American. The visible focused police presence I saw in downtown Jalalabad is indicative of how Sherzai has tamed the province and increased capacity along many dimensions. Fertile lands and an increasing role as a regional economic hub have spurred ideas of what reliable power, further irrigation, and an airport could yield in turning Jalalabad's agricultural wealth into a valuable export.
My hosts in Jalabad were the fine soldiers of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Infantry division at FOB Fenty. I am indebted to these guys for their invitation and taking the time to talk with me about our handbooks and training projects. Long gone, however, is the cushy life of the Burz Al Arab or Kabul Serena. My Fenty quarters were a plywood prison cell right next to a busy helo pad. The 3-1 has really faced some extraordinary challenges -- reforming as an entirely new unit only months before deployment to RC East -- a treacherous and challenging counterinsurgency mission. It is a great credit to COL John Spiszer and his team that they have sustained modest progress in the Northeast even as the situation in the South has deteriorated. The 3-1 has an extraordinary, if perhaps overly stovepiped, group of support units for the engagement and reconstruction of Nangarhar. You have a PRT, HTT, ADT, MTT, not to mention vairous partners in a collection of NGOs and IOs. WTF! Leaving aside (for now) the organizational wisdom of this alphabet soup, Nangarhar is potentially a worthy example of success in the East. Or is it?
Is Sherzai's strongman approach one we would want to duplicate elsewhere? Does the Provincial government have a self-sustaining income stream to function? There is little taxation collected in the province except for the tariff at Torkham Gate -- the primary trade route with Pakistan. The Afghan Torkham profits go directly to a fund controlled by Sherzai, allegedly used for "reconstruction" in an account he controls. Real development is almost entirely funded by outsiders such as the US PRT and various USAID programs. A small budgetary allotment from Kabul just about pays for existing salaries, with none for development, construction, or even much maintenance. Thus, much of the governance and economic growth may be unsustainable servicing of the US grant-making and logistics appetite.
One can think of stabilization as a sequence from engagement to ceasefire to managed peace to self-sustaining peace to long term development and (perhaps) democratization. Nangarhar is ready for a stronger emphasis on sustainable development and governance capacity building that can withstand the inevitable departures of Sherzai and most US assistance. This is not to dismiss the contribution made by Sherzai. He is a good example that working with nasty characters can be a necessary and effective part of small wars.
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.
Comments
Nick,
Thank you for the response, I know you are busy and I appreciate the effort you are putting in to bringing us along for the ride.
As you can imagine, my time in Nangarhar was particularly poignant but mostly full of frustrations directly related to the way 3-1 and Sherzai run things in the province.
Just because there weren't things going "boom" everywhere like you are seeing in Konar doesn't mean it is time for security forces to stop aggressively pursuing insurgents and that our rebuilding efforts can get lackadaisical. Because of ineffectiveness in these two centrally important COIN categories, Nangarhar is quickly backsliding and, in my opinion, becoming an insurgent facilitation hub for other provinces.
When Sherzai told the rural farmers to stop growing poppy, he promised to substitute another crop. Most of the communities agreed out of good faith (and probably some form of coercion). Well, when a farmer has to work for years clearing rocks out of a field measured in feet rather than acres, every little bit of income he can get out of his field counts. Sherzai has still failed to live up to many of his promises but to add insult to injury, the replacement seed that was given to village elders to distribute was mostly kept or sold by the elders. Now you have even more destitute families, including young males, living in the border areas which are easily influenced by the Taliban and where the government forces are either afraid to venture or are working both sides. Those who might not support the Taliban ideologically are forced to support them materially because they have no one to turn to. Intelligence and cooperation from the locals drops off to nothing because no one is willing to stick their neck out for a "security force" that refuses to provide security. And all of this comes from a seemingly insignificant failure on the "soft power" side.
So Taliban influence grows in these areas and the response of the Americans is to ignore it or downplay its effects as much as possible so they can show off Nangarhar as a model community. Instead of taking back control of these areas through more aggressive security measures, targeting leaders for capture, conducting longer and more effective patrols, etc., the U.S. allows its influence to shrink. (Hint: setting up an undermanned ABP observation post in Taliban-controlled territory does not magically make the problem go away.) Policies in direct contradiction of COIN doctrine are degrading the security situation in Nangarhar. And a degrading security situation decreases the positive effects of "soft power" solutions.
Perhaps I'm being oversensitive since I certainly can't claim to have emotional detachment from this topic. I poured a great deal of effort into my work in that province only to see it squandered by those making the decisions. My close association with many good Afghans in that area makes me still want to see efforts there succeed, for their sake. I know they will, eventually, but I hope to see that success sooner rather than later.
IntelTrooper... I think we both agree that progress in Nang is a bit of a mirage(see my fourth paragraph). My broader point is that "a thin veneer of stability" (as you put it) is the minimum necessary precondition for progress on a more sustainable basis. You may need a Machiavellian warlord to get that initial stability. Then you might need a real reformer to move beyond.
Nick,
I beg to differ with your assessment, having spent my year in TF Duke and Valiant. Nangarhar has a thin veneer of stability and progress, but underneath seethes a network of weapons and fighter trafficking. The security forces exert little to no influence in the southern, border areas of the province, and the operational restrictions imposed by Spiszer cripple ISAF and Afghan forces. I'd go into further detail, but this is an open forum.