Rethinking Civilian Assistance in Afghanistan
06.24.2011 at 03:59pm
Rethinking Civilian Assistance in Afghanistan, New York Times op-ed by Desaix Myers. BLUF: “The job of helping Afghans build a state with functioning public services and institutions answering to an engaged civil society is plenty hard. Pumping vast amounts of money quickly – $4 billion this year – through a corrupt and fragile government doesn’t make it easier. Nor do Washington’s expectations, micromanagement and sense of urgency.” Desaix Myers is a professor of national security studies at the National War College in Washington.
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There are some good ideas in here, and I agree that a stable long term commitment of development aid beats an unreliable wavelike “surge” that cannot and will not be sustained. That said, the notion that soft power and hard power resources are joined at the hip, rising and falling together is the kind of inside-the-Beltway logic that needs to be opposed always and everywhere. So this piece gets a B+ for policy and a C- for politics.