In Afghanistan, US military faces unfamiliar foe: Development

Roy Fipps arrived in eastern Afghanistan full of enthusiasm. It was January 2006, and the agricultural engineering professor had been brought in to advise water projects managed by the Gardez Provincial Reconstruction Team, the first incarnation of the United States’ new counterinsurgency tool.

His high hopes soon dimmed.

“I’m deeply concerned,” Fipps wrote in his journal after discovering partial solutions, a lack of technical support, and poor execution. “It’s like the U.S. is not really serious about succeeding here in Afghanistan.”

Conceived in late 2002 as part of President George W. Bush’s post-Taliban Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, PRTs bring together military personnel, Afghan officials, and diplomatic and development representatives in a “hearts and minds” effort to extend the authority of the Afghan government, enhance security, and facilitate reconstruction. They are at the vanguard of a West-led movement to embrace less militant, more diplomatic and development-oriented engagement with the Muslim world.

Fipps, who has visited and advised 14 PRTs across Afghanistan, believes they are “a vital part of development in Afghanistan.” But five years on, the teams have been marred by funding problems, a lack of focus, and the demands of securing an increasingly unstable nation.

A late 2007 study by Oxfam International said PRTs, “being nation-led, are often driven more by available funding or the political interests of the nation involved rather than development considerations.” The report advised a gradual pullout of all Afghan PRTs. In late April, a U.S. aid official acknowledged the State Department, with only 5,500 diplomats, fell well short of PRT staffing needs.

In early 2008, 13 different nations were managing 25 PRTs across Afghanistan. From Italy to Hungary to Germany to Turkey, each foreign government brings a different approach to PRT management, in terms of funding and organizational structure and size. Furthermore, each province has different needs in terms of security and development. Although a PRT executive steering committee meets monthly and a PRT working group gathers every week in Kabul, the teams themselves operate without an overarching structure or agenda, making assessment difficult.

The U.S.-led teams are made up of anywhere between 60 and 200 troops led by a military commander, and include representatives from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the State Deptartment, and U.S. Department of Agriculture. The civilian officials work primarily in advisory capacities, and although they can identify and suggest development projects for the PRT, final approval is reserved for the commander, in cooperation with the provincial counsel. For civilian and military personnel, tours of duty last one year.

As Britain and NATO call for a more robust reconstruction effort in Afghanistan, where success still hangs in the balance, an examination of the effectiveness of PRT-led development work reveals four key challenges likely to determine the future of PRTs, and perhaps the nation as a whole.

1. With us or against us?

The spectrum of tasks performed by PRTs – from capturing insurgents to building schools – sends “confusing messages,” according to a recent analysis by the United States Institute of Peace. A 2006 study by the Overseas Development Institute, a think tank backed by the British government, said the distinction between humanitarian and military action is “integral to the safety of humanitarian workers.” Thus, a blurring of the line between aid and military work endangers workers and project success, according to the report.

Veteran aid worker Conor Foley, who has worked in post-Taliban Afghanistan and is writing a book about humanitarian aid, does not agree completely.

“If the trade-off was we might lose neutrality but we would be able to deliver peace, then, I think, there’d be a good argument that the principle of neutrality isn’t very important,” he said in a recent interview with Devex.

Still, he added, “in the absence of a peace process, inevitably, what you’re doing in reality is strengthening one side against the other.”

Some wonder if such perceptions matter.

“I believe the kind of enemy that we face in Afghanistan isn’t really particularly concerned about the humanitarian space,” Robert Perito, a senior program director at the nonpartisan U.S. Institute of Peace who has studied PRTs closely, told Devex. “They view all outsiders as the enemy.”

A. Heather Coyne, a colleague of Perito who worked in military-civilian efforts in Iraq, explained that because humanitarian work attacks the root causes of the ongoing conflict, it inevitably becomes part of the political landscape. Therefore, it might be wise to join security and development work.

It might also be wise to closely manage such initiatives.

2. Can you spare a hundred grand?

One size does not fit all in the case of PRTs in Afghanistan. From the start, different provinces, different governments, and different agendas rendered any sort of PRT manual or guidelines unlikely and perhaps undesired. Although this lack of a strong foundation has its uses, a great many problems have resulted, including inconsistent funding.

With more than $4 billion spent in post-Taliban Afghanistan through 2006, USAID has provided more funding than any other aid donor. But only 4 percent of that was spent on PRTs; most of the money for PRT development work comes from the Defense Department, via the commander’s emergency relief funds, or CERP. Development funding has been unreliable as a result, leading to tensions and question marks.

The U.S. army commander of the Jalalabad PRT from mid-2004 to mid-2005 relied heavily on his CERP money.

“I never really saw the AID money,” he said in an interview with USIP researchers.

He and other commanders relied on CERP to finance small projects and purchases like police motorcycles and medical supplies.

The Ghazni commander complained that USAID funds went to an alternative livelihoods program in a nearby province. Instead of providing fertilizer, seed and other support to the less agriculturally blessed provinces, such as Ghazni, USAID sent the majority of its funds to opium-growing provinces, which were already capable of growing alternative crops.

If the priority was hearts and minds, the commander wondered, why not make every effort to earn the support of local Taliban-friendly Pashtuns?

“We could have won these guys over, but, no, everything from USAID in the period that I was there was going to these other guys,” he told USIP. “Someone had forgotten about Afghanistan except for that counter drug-type thing.”

Yet even projects with adequate funding can fall short. In Gardez, Fipps met the USAID representative, who at the time was managing $20 million worth of projects including new government buildings, schools, clinics, and irrigation work. The PRT’s civil affairs officer told Fipps that USAID had little quality control and that its projects were poorly implemented. He told Phipps of “buildings that begin falling down” just a year after construction.

Still, Fipps appreciated the quickness of CERP funding. He said it was much more efficient than USAID, which required a long process that involved central planning and often contracted major international firms. CERP funds, in contrast, were available almost immediately and quickly infused money into the local economy.

3. What are we doing here?

Hazy funding often leads to vague goals, and U.S.-run PRTs have been no different.

“The problem with PRTs is that there are no objectives,” said Perito, the USIP analyst. “They’re just sort of encouraged to do something.”

That critique sounds harsh, but it rings true. On assuming his post, the commander of the Jalalabad PRT was given no instruction, no introductions.

“It was just, ‘Go down there and try and do some good things,’” he said.

Through summer 2007, USAID had spent $246 million to help PRTs do good things. Progress reports are scarce because, as Perito explained, “it’s very hard to establish metrics if you don’t know quite what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Until late 2005, civilian officials and military leaders of U.S.-run PRTs in Afghanistan began their work with little or no preparation, unlike civilian officials with PRTs in Iraq. Training has increased in the past two years, but most civil affairs officers remain without training or construction experience. Often isolated in Kabul, they know little about the needs of outlying regions.

“When they go out to inspect projects, they have no clue whether it’s a good project or not,” said Fipps, who added that top candidates were rarely willing to accept hardship PRT assignments.

“PRTs are tough places to have to be stationed and work,” he said. “You don’t get senior people with a lot of experience with metrics volunteering.”

The Oxfam report underscored this point, citing military-led work that sacrificed sustainability for quick results and PRT projects that were “unsuitable, unused or targeted by militants.”

Others argued that the military had proven capable. Fipps saw more industriousness from soldiers and military officers than development workers themselves.

“[The military] all seem so mission-focused and practical-minded, much different from the bureaucratic State Department and USAID missions in Afghanistan,” he told Devex.

A study by Tufts University’s Feinstein International Famine Center made a similar discovery.

“In the eyes of local communities,” the Tufts researchers wrote, “international military personnel were also seen as moving more quickly to reconstruction work than their aid counterparts.”

In the troops’ defense, as of late 2007, all but one of the 12 U.S.-led PRTs operated in the most contested areas of the country and were thus regularly engaged in counter-insurgency.

“You cannot conduct reconstruction activities and governance activities in a situation where it’s too dangerous for PRT members to go out,” said Perito.

Coyne cited a more fundamental concern. She acknowledged that reconstruction in Afghanistan was difficult, but not impossible, yet believed “the military is not cut out to do this.”

She recommended slashing military involvement, a trend the United States began in 2006 with the establishment of its first civilian-led PRT, in the Panjshir Valley. The team worked with USAID on one of the more successful building projects that year: 50 kilometers of paved road winding through the remote valley. Although the project involved cutting into difficult and mountainous terrain, the most sensitive aspect may have been negotiating water rights between elders and local leaders.

4. Who are we working for?

With greater reliance on provincial development counsels — which are run by provincial governors and involve other local leaders — to identify and propose development projects, local inclusion has lately become a key strength of U.S.-led PRTs. Yet problems remain within the Kafkaesque fidelities of 21st century Afghanistan.

In an October 2007 column, The New York Times’ Roger Cohen told this tale of a PRT command approaching a village to speak with local leaders:

Seven armored U.S. Humvees form a “perimeter” on the edge of the village and newly trained members of the still dubious Afghan police are dispatched to bring out village elders … The following information is elicited: There are 300 families using 25 wells. Their irrigation ditches get washed away in winter. A small bridge keeps collapsing. They send their children to a school in nearby Shajoy, but it’s often closed because of Taliban threats to teachers. Sergeant Villalta takes notes. “We’ll share this information with the governor, and make sure something is done.”

“No! No!” says Sardar Mohammed, stepping forward. “We don’t trust the governor. If he gets food, he gives it to 10 families. He puts money in his pocket. We trust you more than him. Bring aid directly to us.’

Is this local being honest or speaking on behalf of a Taliban backer? For Sgt. Villalta, it hardly matters. PRT commanders have been instructed to trust the governors, who run the provincial counsels and thus hold the reins of development.

Of late, projects have shifted toward the objectives of USAID and other international donors: sustainability and capacity building. Maj. Gen. Gerry Robison, who commands the Afghanistan PRTs under NATO’s International Security Assistance Force umbrella, explained the shift.

“Our PRTs are now ensuring that all of their reconstruction project work is in line with sector strategies…and that infrastructure or capability that is delivered can be subsequently supported and financed by the Afghan ministries,” he said at a November press conference in Kabul.

Indeed, projects involve locals whenever possible.

“PRTs hire local contractors to implement the projects,” said Fipps.

As a result, he added, PRTs were “very popular,” and “provinces that shared a PRT wanted their own.”

Where to go from here

Since mid-2007, the U.S. government has moved to strengthen the coordination of civilian and military reconstruction efforts, via the creation of the Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization within the State Department, widespread calls for expanding USAID, and a recent proposal – from legislators and President Bush – for the establishment of a civilian reserve corps to work with the U.S. military in post-conflict reconstruction. But meaningful progress has been scant.

For now, the U.S. Department of Defense must continue to shoulder the burden, something it has not done since its soldier-workers left Germany and Japan. More than five decades later, its troops find themselves in Afghanistan, spearheading efforts integral to the future of the Afghan people, to regional peace, and to building bridges between Islam and the West. Imperfect as the teams may be, the U.S. military has little choice: Aid workers are generally unable to venture into the most dangerous regions of Afghanistan. Still, PRT criticism has begun to give way to more upbeat assessments.

Through last summer, USAID had funded 496 PRT quick projects resulting in the construction and rehabilitation of 400 schools, 600 wells and 170 clinics. Robison, the Afghanistan PRT commander, ticked off a list of accomplishments: The Baghlan PRT built a flood prevention wall next to an ongoing school construction; the Kandahar PRT replaced a poppy field with a pomegranate nursery; and a PRT in Badghis province recently completed a new provincial hospital at a cost of $2.9 million. (None of the PRTs the general cited are U.S.-led; they are Hungarian, Canadian, and Spanish, respectively.)

The U.S. military remains high on its new tool.

“This seems to be the flavor of the month,” said Perito, adding that in time, PRTs will find their niches and refine best practices. “There will be more.”

Robison said all Afghanis wanted a PRT of their own.

“But over time,” he added, “success will be measured by the fact that actually we can phase our PRTs out.”

In the meantime, the PRT program is in the process of expanding to all 34 Afghan provinces.