Afghanistan could fail as a state

A new independent study by retired Marine Corps Gen. James Jones and former U.N. Ambassador Thomas Pickering has a dire warning for Afghanistan, according to The Associated Press which obtained an advance copy.

Study: Afghanistan could fail as a state, Anne Flaherty (The Associated Press), 29 January 2008. Afghanistan risks sliding into a failed state and becoming the "forgotten war" because of deteriorating international support and a growing violent insurgency, according to an independent study.
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"Afghanistan stands at a crossroads," concludes the study, an advance copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. "The progress achieved after six years of international engagement is under serious threat from resurgent violence, weakening international resolve, mounting regional challenges and a growing lack of confidence on the part of the Afghan people about the future direction of their country."

A major issue has been trying to win the war with "too few military forces and insufficient economic aid," the study adds.

Among the group's nearly three dozen recommendations: increase NATO force levels and military equipment sent to Afghanistan, decouple U.S. management of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, establish a special envoy to coordinate all U.S. policy on Afghanistan, and champion a unified strategy among partner nations to stabilize the country in five years.

You can read the study here.

Also read the Atlantic Council report released the same day, Saving Afghanistan: An Appeal and Plan for Urgent Action. It states bluntly that "NATO is not winning in Afghanistan" and urges quick changes in course, including a coherent security and reconstruction assessment, appointment of a UN high commissioner, and the creation of a comprehensive regional strategy including all neighboring actors like Pakistan and Iran.

A third interesting report comes from Oxfam which recommends changing the "centralized, top-heavy and insufficient" aid-distribution process to a more indigenous approach that emphasizes "more even distribution of aid, greater alignment with national and local priorities and increased use of Afghan resources" and focuses more on rural development and agricultural aid.

New Report on the ‘Forgotten War’

The European Council on Foreign Relations has a new report out calling for U.S. and European governments to “overhaul their strategies and strike a 'grand bargain' to stabilise the country.” Significantly, it urges enticing moderates into the fold of governance and legitimacy through money and other incentives.

There will be no stability in Afghanistan unless “moderate” insurgents embrace constitutionalism and enter democratic politics. Since the Bonn Agreement in the wake of the September 11th attacks, the coalition has supported the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, better known as the Northern Alliance, which brought together the main Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara groupings. For obvious reasons it had no significant links to the Pashtuns who make up 42% of Afghanistan’s population.22 After 2001, despite Karzai’s Pashtun background, Pashtun tribal leaders were largely excluded from government and have been ever since. Many have thus aligned themselves with the resurgent Taliban. The coalition and the Afghan government must work to convince them that they can pursue their interests democratically.

There have already been signs that this is at least possible. Though President Karzai’s overtures to reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were rebuffed, the Taliban, while insisting on a number of conditions, have been receptive to the idea of negotiations as proposed within Karzai's "Peace Jirga". The British Prime Minister Gordon Brown recently gave his backing to these negotiations, again with conditions attached, but the US administration remains sceptical.

Political agreements - like the failed Musa Qala deal in 2006 overseen by the then ISAF commander, General David Richards – should aim to isolate the “hard-core”, many of whom are foreigners, from more moderate, indigenous groups. Such political agreements would also help avoid the violent tactics that may have won NATO military victories last year but cost vital public support because of high civilian casualties.

An effective policy in the short term would be to identify insurgent leaders willing to cut a deal. The coalition could then operate a system of “divide and rule”, whereby intransigent insurgents would see their erstwhile comrades rewarded with a package of financial and other incentives which add up to a better deal than that offered by the Taliban. (emphasis added by editor).

The report urges European governments to send more troops to Afghanistan, eliminate or reduce the national caveats on their troops, and reverse their “underperformance” by increasing reconstruction aid. On the flip side, the report pushes the U.S. to shift its combat strategy to a more political one and abandon its counter-narcotics plans of aerial spraying or buying up opium crops. It recommends the U.S. shift the onus of the problem onto traffickers and concentrate on arresting and prosecuting drug lords and their governmental supporters.

Ashdown’s Challenges

The Asia Times has an insightful look at the challenges that Paddy Ashdown will face as he begins his new role as the UN envoy to Afghanistan. Pakistani bureau chief Syed Saleem Shahzad opines that Ashdown will have to talk with “the real players” – Mullah Omar and al-Qaida -- notwithstanding the recent expulsion of European diplomats for allegedly talking to the Taliban.

Paddy Ashdown to be new UN Rep

It’s official. Paddy Ashdown, the former EU-UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, has accepted the post as the new UN envoy to Afghanistan, according to a source quoted by Reuters. The UN Security Council is expected to approve and publicly announce this on Monday. Ashdown's biggest challenge will be coordinating and reconciling military and civilian efforts from all the various countries involved in Afghan reconstruction and security, while ensuring that the Afghan government is not left behind in these efforts. See Afghanistan Watch’s earlier post on this.

Expelling Diplomats

The expulsion of two senior diplomats from Afghanistan last week is causing much consternation. Irishman Michael Semple, the EU acting representative in Afghanistan, and Mervyn Patterson, from Northern Ireland, working with the UN assistance mission, were accused of jeopardizing national security after reportedly talking to the Taliban during a trip to Musa Qala in Helmand Province. They were stripped of their diplomatic immunity and expelled from Afghanistan last week.

Rory Stewart writes in the London Times that “it would seem that they have been expelled for precisely what made them uniquely useful to Afghanistan and the international community: their courage, relationships, energy and skills, which took them to the most remote and dangerous areas.”

What makes the expulsion particularly galling, says Stewart, is that diplomats are normally expelled by hostile dictatorships, not budding democracies.

(Afghanistan) is supposed to be a constitutional state with an elected parliament, financed with billions of dollars of international aid and supported by more than 40,000 foreign troops. There is supposed to be no difference between the Afghan government and its western allies.
Why, then, would the Afghan government insult its closest and most powerful partners by expelling their senior diplomats? Why does the Afghan government not want highly informed foreigners to meet locals in Musa Qala?
The unprecedented western investment in Afghanistan assumes that the Afghan government is serious about eliminating drugs and defeating the Taliban. Did Semple and Patterson discover something different? Or is the Kabul government simply fed up with foreigners who micromanage and second-guess their decisions?
Whatever the reason, both Afghanistan and the international community lose by this expulsion.

Video: Interview with Gen. McNeill, Rashid, MacDonald

Yesterday, the NewsHour with Jim Leherer ran a good segment on Afghanistan featuring commentary by Gen. Dan McNeill, Ahmed Rashid, and Norine MacDonald (from Senlis Council). The transcript, along with streaming video, is available here.

Assessing Afghanistan: NATO's 63 new metrics

Reuters reports yesterday that NATO has drawn up a "standardized system" of 63 metrics it will use to track progress in Afghanistan. U.S. Army Gen. John Craddock said that "I would submit to you that, to date, most of the assessments of progress have been against anecdotal information," or measured in terms of outputs such as schools built or roads paved. "All good things," he notes, "But the question in my mind is: What's the effect it's produced?" Were the roads blocked? Were the classrooms empty?

I find it more than a little bit troubling that NATO is only getting to this discussion six years in to the intervention. This sort of thinking should have been integrated from day one. In their defense, they probably had metrics, and are now revisiting them to make them meaningful.

It is, of course, a devilishly complicated undertaking. Which metrics to choose? How to weight one against another? And how to gather reliable data from the multitude of unverified sources that include donor countries, the UN, GOA, NGOs? Everyone is keeping score, but based on a different set of rules. Just thinking about it makes my head spin. I would love to see the 63 metrics NATO settled on, and hear how it plans to measure them (if anyone has insights on this, drop a line or a comment...)

NATO revamps measures of Afghan progress, by Andrew Gray (Reuters) 5 December 2007: WASHINGTON -- NATO has developed a standardized system for tracking progress in Afghanistan because the war so far has been judged largely using anecdotal evidence, the alliance's top commander said on Tuesday.

             

Ashdown headed to Kabul as "super-envoy"?

According to new reports, Paddy Ashdown, the former EU-UN High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, has been offered a newly created position in Kabul as a "super envoy" that would head Afghanistan efforts by NATO, the UN, and perhaps the EU as well.

According to a NATO diplomat quoted yesterday in the Financial Times, “Ashdown’s name seems to be the only one in play. I understand that Karzai is comfortable with that and it seems as if the ball is now in Ashdown’s court.” Other names floated for the position have included Joschka Fischer and Hikmet Cetin, former foreign ministers of Germany and Turkey.

Ashdown's name has been bandied about since June, but he was reluctant to consider the job unless he had the endorsement of the United States. Then recently the dual-hatted position was championed by Nicholas Burns, the number three man in the US State Dept. There remains disagreement over the nature of the role, according to Karzai spokesman Hamayun Hamidzada, who notes in The Scotsman that "Britain wants a Kabul-based envoy, who would co-ordinate people here, and also in the capitals. The US thinks you need a roving envoy going from capital to capital." 

Will Ashdown accept? In June, he said there was the need for such a post:  "My view, for what it is worth, is that there needs to be a single figure out there pulling all the strands together. At the moment there is little or no co-ordination and the country is starting to work against itself." 

The change could greatly improve coordination and elevate the status of the UN in Afghanistan. It would require a tremendously skilled  manager and coordinator to make it all work -- something Ashdown was able to do quite well in Bosnia. In a WSJ op-ed last month, Hans Binnendijk argued that "a new, high-profile European High Representative under U.N. auspices should be appointed to pull together the diverse national contributions in Afghanistan and to coordinate military and economic approaches into a comprehensive and coherent whole. Paddy Ashdown provides a good example with his work in Bosnia. Such a High Representative could also help convince European publics to stick with the Afghan effort." The challenge will be coordinating with the US and with the Afghan government, which as a sovereign state would never grant Ashdown the level of authority he had in Bosnia.

Photo: Paddy Ashdown (aka Jeremy John Durham Ashdown, Baron Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon...) 

World Policy Journal piece

Below is an excerpt from a piece I wrote for this month's World Policy Journal. In it I argue that a too-narrow focus on counterinsurgency operations has undermined the mission in Afghanistan. The challenge today is recalibrating our approach to combine the right combination of military and non-military tools. You can download the full article here.

Buying Time in Afghanistan By Carl Robichaud, World Policy Journal, Fall 2007:   Afghanistan is increasingly seen as Iraq in slow motion. It is not. The headlines of car bombs and casualty tolls echo each other, but mask deep differences in each society and in the dynamics of each insurgency. As Iraq has descended into civil war, Afghanistan’s center has held. The government remains weak, but power holders and the public show no appetite for a return to internecine fighting. The insurgency remains solvent because of safe havens across the border in Pakistan, but has been unable to expand upon its toehold in Afghanistan or offer a compelling alternative to the status quo. MORE

Karzai's primetime appeal: curtail the airstrikes

President Karzai made a primetime appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes this Sunday to call for a rollback of airstrikes in Afghanistan.

When 60 Minutes asked whether Karzai had directly requested that President George W. Bush end the airstrikes he said "Absolutely. Oh, yes, in clear words."  He implied that his appearance on 60 Minutes was part of an attempt to go public now that direct conversations have failed to get results: "I want to repeat that, alternatives to the use of air force. And I will speak for it again through your media."

"You're demanding that?" - Pelley (in reference to a rollback of airstrikes)
"Absolutely," - Karzai.

• Watch the video

The rest of the piece is worth watching, if only because it is the first time a camera team was permitted into the Combined Air Operations Center, America's high-tech command post situated in an undisclosed Persian Gulf country (Qatar?) It is a scene that is both surreal and yet somehow mundane: walls lined with massive monitors, people seated at rows of desks with computers. It is here that decisions are made on each airstrike in Afghanistan and Iraq -- decisions that will mean life or death for people hundreds or thousands of miles away. MORE

NATO leases out? Helicopters to be rented...

In an unprecedented move, NATO this weekend approved money to lease cargo helicopters for the alliance's transport needs --  a move made necessary because members of the alliance again refused to provide airlift out of their own military assets.

The diplomats were careful not to assign blame, but Canada's Globe and Mail notes that  "Italy, Spain and France are among the Western European countries with large numbers of big, modern helicopters protected by sophisticated anti-missile defences and flown by highly trained crews." Canada, which has relied upon it allies' helicopters to support its operations in Kandahar, would stand the most to gain from a boost in transport capacity.

The airlift shortfall has long been an issue, and came to a head this summer when the US extended the tour of a helicopter unit in Kandahar until the end of the year. The helicopters -- which may be leased from Ukraine and Russia -- will mostly fill this gap and permit the coalition's other helicopters to transport troops and evacuate the wounded.

Some argue that having additional airlift will make coalition troops safer, since many of the casualties in Afghanistan have come from roadside bombs. However, using helicopters is often just as risky: since 2001, 18 helicopters have gone down in Afghanistan, resulting in 110 deaths. So it should come as no surprise that many NATO allies are reluctant to risk their airmen.

The alternatives, however, come at a high cost, both in Euros and credibility. According to the Globe and Mail:

The cost of chartering large helicopters is expected to be very high. At standard commercial rates, an Mi-17 - the civilian version of the widely used and rugged Russian workhorse capable of lifting four tonnes - could exceed $100,000 a week, yet fly far less than the punishing days endured by U.S., British and Dutch crews. Given the high costs of maintenance and the premium civilian pilots can be expected to demand for risking their lives, the cost could easily soar. A flock of 20 Mi-17s or a smaller number of the even larger Mi-26s, might cost more than $100-million a year, one industry source said.

Secretary Robert Gates resigned himself to the move, even if his frustration showed in responding to reporters that "it's not the best option. It may be the only option." (More excerpts from his transcript below...) MORE

Image: Troops board a CH-47 Chinook helicopter in Daychopan district on their way back to Kandahar Army Air Field on Sept. 4, 2003. U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Kyle Davis.

Exports up 13 percent in first two quarters

Every year, Afghanistan imports about $5 billion dollars in goods and exports just $500 million. But this year, according to a government spokesman, exports are at least on the rise. In the first two quarters, exports have gone up 12% and 13% respectively when compared with last year.

Afghan exports include handcrafts, fresh and dry fruit, minerals, leather products, cotton and precious stones and have gone to  India, China, Pakistan, UAE, Europe and the US. The rise in exports is attributable, to some extent, on the removal of customs, barriers, and other red tape. A good trend, but obviously still a long way to go.

Afghanistan's exports up by 13pc in 2nd quarter. (Pajhwok Afghan News) by Zainab Muhammadi, KABUL, Oct 21: Afghanistan's exports had registered 13 percent increase during the second quarter of the current Afghan year as compared to the same period during last year, officials said on Sunday.

Germany's Afghan conundrum

Last week Germany voted by a 2 to 1 margin to sustain the deployment of its 3,000 strong forces in Afghanistan--for now. But how sustainable is this mission when the public at large opposes the deployment by the same margin?

Ulf Gartzke, in an op-ed today in the Globe and Mail argues that Angela Merkel (along with other NATO heads of state) "can no longer afford to avoid engaging in a fundamental public discussion of why losses in Afghanistan are justified in terms of our core national security interests." Merkel has stayed out of the Germany's Afghanistan debate, but this "defensive, reactive strategy ultimately carries huge political and security risks, both at home and abroad."

So long as the mission is seen in Germany as George Bush's war, it will remain unpopular and could be a liability in 2009.  But there is no better reminder in the threat a failed Afghanistan would leave for Germany than the recent -- derailed at the last minute -- to set off a series of massive car bombs in a Frankfurt airport that handles 5 million passengers a month. The terrorists plotting that attack, Gartzke notes, were Islamic terrorists trained along the Afghan-Pakistan border.

German lessons: the Afghan conundrum (The Globe and Mail) by Ulf Gartzke, Special to Globe and Mail Update, Oct 16: Last Friday, the German parliament extended the Bundeswehr's 3,100-strong ISAF mandate in Afghanistan for another year. ...For Chancellor Angela Merkel and her conservative allies, the Bundeswehr's bloody, seemingly open-ended Afghan engagement is a political time bomb that could go off in the run-up to the next federal elections, to be held by 2009.

Two police chiefs sacked. Problem solved, right?

Tip of the iceberg:

Afghan police chiefs sacked for negligence (Reuters) By Jon Hemming, KABUL:   The Afghan government sacked two provincial police chiefs for negligence, the Interior Ministry said on Saturday, highlighting problems in a force often accused of corruption and which is key to security in Afghanistan...The Interior Ministry said it had sacked the provincial police chiefs of Dai Kundi in the centre of the country and Wardak just southwest of the capital, Kabul....The police chief in Wardak stands accused of pocketing officers' salaries, leading many in his force to abandon their posts...

Wardak, only an hour's drive from Kabul, is among provinces previously regarded as safe which have witnessed a rise in Taliban violence in the last few months. Only a few hundred Turkish troops from the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are stationed there and they are not allowed by their government to conduct offensive operations. MORE

Korb and Wadhams: Five steps

Larry Korb and Caroline Wadhams argue today in a Newsday op-ed that "the United States and NATO must increase troop levels by at least 20,000" in Afghanistan. This rise in troop levels is part of a five-point plan that includes bolstering reconstruction assistance, focusing on rule of law, and reforming U.S. aid channels to Pakistan. The steps they sketch out will be supported by a more comprehensive report in the coming months -- keep your eyes peeled ...

U.S.

must put more focus on Afghan insurgency, Oct 9, 2007: Sunday marked the sixth anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and al-Qaida....But the mission in Afghanistan is going alarmingly awry, and the United States must refocus and re-energize its policy. The administration and Congress cannot allow the sinking ship of Iraq to take Afghanistan down with it...

To achieve our security objectives, the United States, and especially Congress, must provide increased funds, attention and manpower - both civilian and military. U.S. leaders must also engage the American people, as they may become increasingly pessimistic about U.S. involvement in the Muslim world as a result of the war in Iraq. There are five concrete steps Congress and the administration should pursue immediately. MORE

Latest Kajaki Dam cost estimates

The latest USAID estimate for the Kajaki Dam appears in today's International Water Power: $150m for the first year, and up to $500m total. Actual cost will probably be much higher -- and still worth every penny.

Progress on the dam is the bellwether of efforts in Helmand: restoring hydroelectric power would have massive symbolic and pragmatic consequences (not to mention create 4,000 jobs...) So it's a huge reconstruction priority--but one which requires sustained security to implement...

• Upgrade planned for Afghan dam International Water Power, UK 09/26/2007.

British commander opens fire on US Special Forces

For the first time, a British commander has openly (if anonymously) criticized the US military approach in Helmand, which he claims has led to most of the civilian deaths in the area and has jeopardized the British-led mission in the area. Official spokesmen from both the US and Britain rushed to dispute the claim.

The US retains a Special Forces presence in Helmand--they ostensibly advise the Afghan National Army and operate alongside the larger NATO deployment led by the British and numbering over 6,000 troops. The British commander, who apparently gave the interview a couple weeks ago, argues that "There aren’t large bodies of Taliban to fight anymore; we are dealing with small groups and we are trying to kick-start reconstruction and development,” and that therefore the Special Forces approach--with its reliance on airpower--is counterproductive in this context. Whether this claim is accurate, it is sure to add kindling to the smoldering debate over the US vs the European approach to counterinsurgency...Excerpts from the article follow...MORE

"Cops or Robbers?" AREU's must-read report on police reform

Donors are finally realizing the importance of police reform. Unfortunately, some of the response has been to throw money at the problem--the latest infusion of funding, for example, focuses on training and equipment, as if the police problem were primarily a technocratic challenge rather than a political one.

Andrew Wilder, research director at Tuft's Feinstein Center, is the author the AREU's remarkable new report on the topic entitled "Cops or Robbers? The Struggle to Reform the Afghan National Police". He argues that there is still no consensus about the role of police, and too little appreciation that the Ministry of the Interior is part of the problem. The paper highlights five challenges. Donors will need to:

Is less more?

Rory Stewart's piece in the Times today has it right and wrong. He's right in his assessment that a major infusion of troops, committed now, is not the answer to the insurgency. He's right that we should focus more of our energies in the stable areas of Afghanistan where money goes further and that we need more modesty in what we seek to achieve.

But Stewart is wrong on several counts. First, his assertion that the situation in Helmand (and Uruzgan, and Kandahar) has deteriorated because of the NATO presence is highly speculative. To wit:

Britain decided in 2005 to bring good government, security, rule of law and economic growth to Helmand Province. At the time, there were few Taliban attacks in the area. The British deployed some 4,000 soldiers last year and more civilian advisers to replace a few hundred international troops who had been in the province since the fall of the Taliban. The British effort failed. A year and a half later, with 7,000 British troops in Helmand, the provincial government is more corrupt, the streets less safe for citizens, the poppy crop larger and the legal economy and infrastructure more eroded.

Stewart essentially argues that "the foreign presence has provoked a wide Taliban insurgency". In fact, the insurgency was on the rebound well before the arrival of NATO expansion (which was implemented in response) and attributable to a mix of factors, including the increase of cross-border support, narcotics revenues, disillusionment with government corruption, etc. This is not to say that resentment doesn't fuel the Taliban, but to blame NATO for the intensification of the insurgency is akin to arguing that ambulances tend to cause car crashes.

Stewart argues that the counterinsurgency cannot succeed because "Afghan officials are simply not committed to state-building in southern Afghanistan, and many are connected to the drug trade." While accurate, this account omits mention that many of these officials were installed or permitted to retain power precisely because of a minimalist Western strategy (of which Stewart approves) that was adopted to avoid confrontation so the United States could keep its focus on counterterrorism/counterinsurgency goals. In other words, the reason southern leaders don't support state-building and drug control is because they are doing just fine, thank you very much, under the system that the West facilitated.

As an alternative, Stewart has an appealing plan: he writes that we can conduct development in the north and counterterrorism in the south without conducting counterinsurgency operations. A new counterterrorism strategy comprised of "intelligence, pragmatic politics, savvy use of our development assistance and on special forces operations" can combat the threat of jihadism not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan and Iraq. In other words, we can do more with less sacrifice if only we do it smarter.

This is precisely the message that Washington, Ottawa, and London are keen to hear. It may also be true. But Stewart has been pushing this line for several months now, but I have yet to hear how this approach might be operationalized. Do military experts believe they could do counterterrorism without creating a permissive environment? Can progress in the north, center and west be maintained if the Taliban are given latitude to operate the south? Can the government retain credibility and authority if the ballast of international support is withdrawn?

Where Less is More. KABUL: July 23, 2007 (NYT Op-Ed) By RORY STEWART: America and its allies are in danger of repeating the mistakes of Iraq in Afghanistan. Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and even some Republicans are insisting on withdrawing from Iraq and sending more troops and resources to southern Afghanistan. The Bush administration’s gloomy National Intelligence Estimate last week on the fight against Al Qaeda will only lead others to make such calls.

But they should think again. The intervention in Afghanistan has gone far better than that in Iraq largely because the American-led coalition has limited its ambitions and kept a light footprint, leaving the Afghans to run their own affairs. MORE

Sarah Chayes: Don't blame NATO

Sarah Chayes writes today in the Times that the US has handed NATO an impossible task and then blamed it for failing to accomplish it. Karzai, she writes, "begged for peacekeepers, spread throughout the country, in those early years," but when NATO invoked Article V it was rebuffed by the administration's reply of "thanks, but no thanks." Her conclusion: Afghanistan is failing because "NATO was brought in too late, and under false pretenses".

Chayes is right about these errors, and has experienced their consequences more directly than most. But she overestimates NATO's capacity and willingness to bear a heavy burden in those early years--and lets it off the hook too easily today (she never mentions, for example, the reality of a two-tier system in which some contributors are willing to fight and others are not.) There is surely more than enough blame to go around for our collective unwillingness, and systematic unreadiness, to provide comprehensive security for Afghanistan.

By suggesting that earlier and broader NATO engagement could have solved Afghanistan's problems, Chayes implies that Afghanistan's troubles call for military solutions. More NATO troops, however, could not have solved a central, structural problem: international efforts have been over militarized, with far too little energy focused on establishing governance and rule of law, among other missing priorities.

NATO Didn't Lose Afghanistan: Kandahar, Afghanistan (NYT op-ed by Sarah Chayes): WHEN things go wrong — touchdown passes are missed, products come out defective, wars are lost — it is typical to blame the equipment, or the help. In the case of the unraveling situation in Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has become the favorite whipping boy of American officials and military personnel. NATO countries aren’t sending enough troops, we hear. Those who do arrive are constrained by absurd caveats that prevent them from engaging in combat. NATO lost Helmand Province to the Taliban.

In fact, after watching rotation after military rotation cycle through here since late 2001, I see NATO as an improvement over its American predecessors.

Art Credit: Matt Weems

Rule of law conference nets $360 m in new money

Last week's Rome conference on the rule of law was largely overshadowed by discussions of civilian casualties, but it resulted in some good news: a major boost to the beleaguered sector. Overall, donors pledged $360 m in new funds (over four or five years...) for training judges, building prisons and courtrooms, etc.

The new funds are on top of the $50m already designated for legal sector reform (but I've seen no indication as to whether donors may be reprogramming the new funds from other funding areas...) As of last week, officials would not break down the contributions by country, but this week the US announced its pledge of $15 m. Before the conference the European Union announced that it was readying ~$270 m in pledges, so that's where the bulk of funding is coming from. Please drop a comment if you have more details on what happened in Rome and who has pledged what...