Civilian SSTR Planning: NSC or Private Sector Lead

There's a huge need for a civilian planning capacity related to SSTR and post-conflict situations (I have written about this before). This need may be the single most important element in the organizational transformation need to prepare ourselves for the next time around.

This blog often takes an American perspective - or looks primarily at American developments. This is because US leadership is paramount. Whatever happens elsewhere is likely to be to small to be consequential or effective. But this doesn't mean that other countries - notably the UK or e.g. Denmark - could not in theory either develop interesting concepts or organizational innovations which might either be of use or inspiration to the US institutions (as in e.g. the PCRU).

Establishing better integrated military-civilian planning is the only way to construct a strategically realistic "total cost of life" approach to future interventions. Such an approach should make clear e.g. the need for civilian (local or external) police forces. Of course, the Dobbins Handbook gives hints but we need more concrete planning.

Evidently, the Pentagon is not going to open their warplanning to civilians - not even the NSC. But it would be helpful if the civilian side could at least know that the Pentagon planning process had or will be reformed in accordance with the DoD Directive 3000.05 (the problem is here that the NSPD 44 formally gives State the lead, and the S/CRS does not have resources even remotely comparable to OSD, Pentagon itself or even JFCOM.

Of course, some of this planning stuff could be produced or at least introduced in generic form by the private and international public sector - here preferably the non-profit side - like e.g. a combination of UN people (from the UNDP plus the Peace-building Commission) and relevant think-tankers like the Dobbins people, and maybe concerted or hosted by the ICG. But in purely US terms, the NSC could play such a role.

The NSC seems to be the only place where funds can be found for this kind of exercise (given substantive executive interest, i.e. will not happen until the next administration). But this means that now would be a good time to spread such and idea in order for it to be somewhere on the upcoming administrations' agendas. Richard Clarke's great "Against All Enemies" explains and exemplifies how an adept operator can help create leeway for interagency policy development inside the NSC. In fact, as he mentions explicitly, he was part of the process for creating POL-MIL plans starting with Haiti. So the nuts and bolts and precedence are there. As always it is more a matter of political will and focus than anything else.

GAO Report Confirms Civil Planning Need

New GAO report out on US Stability Operations capability and reform (link here is to pdf). From the exec summary:

DOD has taken several steps to improve planning for stability operations, but faces challenges in developing capabilities and measures of effectiveness, integrating the contributions of non-DOD agencies into military contingency plans, and incorporating lessons learned into future plans. These challenges may hinder DOD’s ability to develop sound plans. Since November 2005, the department issued a new policy, expanded its military planning guidance, and defined a joint operating concept to help guide DOD planning for the next 15–20 years. These steps reflect a fundamental shift in DOD’s policy because they elevate stability operations as a core mission comparable to combat operations and emphasize that military and civilian efforts must be integrated. However, DOD has yet to identify and prioritize the full range of capabilities needed for stability operations because DOD has not provided clear guidance on how and when to accomplish this task. As a result, the services are pursuing initiatives to address capability shortfalls that may not reflect the comprehensive set of capabilities that will be needed by combatant commanders to effectively accomplish stability operations in the future. Similarly, DOD has made limited progress in developing measures of effectiveness because of weaknesses in DOD’s guidance.

DOD is taking steps to develop more comprehensive military plans related to stability operations, but it has not established adequate mechanisms to facilitate and encourage interagency participation in its planning efforts. At the combatant commands, DOD has established working groups with representatives from several key organizations, but these groups and other outreach efforts by the commanders have had limited effect. Three factors cause this limited and inconsistent interagency participation in DOD’s planning process: (1) DOD has not provided specific guidance to commanders on how to integrate planning with non-DOD organizations, (2) DOD practices inhibit sharing of planning information, and (3) DOD and non-DOD organizations lack a full understanding of each other's planning processes, and non-DOD organizations have had a limited capacity to participate in DOD's full range of planning activities.

Although DOD collects lessons learned from past operations, planners are not consistently using this information as they develop future contingency plans. At all levels within the department, GAO found that information from current and past operations are being captured and incorporated into various databases. However, planners are not consistently using this information because (1) DOD’s guidance for incorporating lessons into its plans is outdated and does not specifically require planners to take this step, (2) accessing lessons-learned databases is cumbersome, and (3) the review process does not evaluate the extent to which lessons learned are incorporated into specific plans.

The report then confirms what I have said before (in "The Most Unsexy Headline Ever: Planning Capabilities in the Inter-Agency Process"): We need civil planning - or at least: planning for the civilian side of contingency plans. And nobody - including internationally - has the knowhow and the resources to do it but Pentagon.

Bensahel/Survival: Useful Nationbuilding Reform Overview

Whether, how and how far to reform for nationbuilding operations has become the central strategic question in the OECD/NATO camp. We all now we have to contribute to and take the lead in administrating the state system, but how and especially how far do we want to go? Will preparing well mean creating an offer that begets a demand? Will it weaken our resolve in terms of "real war"? Or has modern war been finally rendered clausewitzian -- to be always about political endstates, and does this mean we have to take an institutional leap? The new issue of Survival contains an overview over recent bureaucratic efforts in the US, UK, Canada, Germany, EU and G8 -- prepared by Nora Bensahel from the RAND Corp.

Recent years have seen numerous initiatives to build organisational capacity for nation-building operations in both national govern­ments and international organisations. These initiatives have made some progress, but they share a number of common problems, including bureaucratic turf wars, interagency and intergovernmental coordination challenges, limited financial resources, and shortages of qualified personnel. If left unchecked, these problems may prevent these initiatives from addressing the capacity challenges they were designed to solve.

Failed State Index 07: Convergence Between Security and Development

Failed states are perhaps the best illustration of the convergence between security and development policy. Foreign Policy magazine (in cooperation with the Fund for Peace) has now published its 2007 edition.

Go check it out.

Tic Tacs #6

Miami Herald: "Iran aid to Taliban hints at policy shift. U.S. officials suspect that Iranian weapons shipments to the Taliban may be retaliation for U.S. foreign policy."

Secrecy News: National Intelligence Council Sponsors Wiki on Global Disease. Students at Mercyhurst College created a wiki-based resource on global disease to support the National Intelligence Council, while demonstrating the utility of the wiki approach for intelligence analysis. "The fundamental question had to do with the impact of chronic and infectious diseases on US national interests over the next 10-15 years," said Prof. Kristan J. Wheaton, whose class produced the wiki.

Counterterrorism Blog: "A few days ago, I spoke with a U.S. official working for one of the new embedded provisional reconstruction teams (EPRTs) in Iraq. (...) The EPRTs are different. Rather than operating separately from and parallel to the military, they are embedded within the military structure. Six EPRTs operate in Baghdad, three in Anbar, and one in Babil. Their structure is similar to that of the PRTs (run by a foreign service officer, featuring a U.S. Army deputy, a USAID member, a bicultural advisor, and other staffers) but rather than functioning in the top-down manner of the PRTs, the EPRTs are designed to make more of a difference at what the official called the "granular" level. That is, the EPRTs are integrated into the military's tactical operations, and are designed to advance reconstruction efforts on a street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood basis.

Thomas P.M. Barnett: "The talks are cordial, but go nowhere. ARTICLE: "U.S. and Iranian Officials Meet in Baghdad, but Talks Yield No Breakthroughs," by Kirk Semple, New York Times, 29 May 2007, p. A8. Why should they? We hold talks to see what Iran can do to save our asses in Iraq but refuse to use that venue to discuss any quid pro quo Tehran might desire. These talks aren't designed to work. They're designed to check a box. That's my weekend column. "

Tic Tacs #5

Tom Barnett on John Robb's book Brave New Wars: "John's book is deeply informed by the fact he's a serious technocrat who distrusts politics. Indeed, politics as any form of solution is basically missing in action in this book. When it's referred to glancingly here and there, it's always to catalogue dysfunction or corruption (e.g., America's entire political system is dismissed with a reference to Jack Abramoff's ability to purchase it at will--a blanketing statement which comes off as strangely naive in its cynicism, but that's not unusual for military guys who often describe Washington like it's some modern-day Sodom)."

From the AP via Yahoo: "The Pentagon is setting up a civilian Language Corps, a cadre of some 1,000 foreign-language speakers who can help the government in times of war and national emergencies. In a three-year pilot program, the Defense Department will recruit volunteers and do testing to see if such a program would work. If successful, a permanent corps could be developed, said Robert Slater, who heads the Pentagon personnel office's security education program. "The federal government can't possibly identify, hire and warehouse professionals with skills in 150 languages," Slater said Wednesday. "So it's invaluable to be able to respond in emergencies, whether international or national.""

World Bank Private Sector Development Blog on quality of FDI (quote from referenced paper): "This paper exploits a comprehensive, industry level data set for the period 1985-2000 that encompasses 29 countries to examine the various links between different “types” of FDI and growth. An appealing feature of industry analysis is that it mitigates some of the effects of unobserved heterogeneity and model misspecification, which are difficult to control at the national level. We also use as an instrument a new industry-level data set on industry targeting. We find FDI at the industry level to be associated with higher growth in value added. The relation is stronger for industries with higher skill requirements and for industries more reliant on external capital."

North County Times: "CAMP PENDLETON -- The first five of 24 Iraqi civilians killed in Haditha by a squad of Camp Pendleton Marines in 2005 were repeatedly shot by two sergeants who then agreed to blame the slayings on the Iraqi army, one of the shooters testified Wednesday afternoon. Sgt. Sanick Dela Cruz said he fired at the five men moments after Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich unleashed a barrage of bullets at the group being held at gunpoint with their arms raised in the air."

WorldPublicOpinion.org: "Publics around the world say the United Nations has the responsibility to protect people from genocide and other severe human rights abuses even if this means acting against the will of their own government, according to a multinational study."

Darfur: Proxy War Over Good Governance Unfolding

If the controversial report about Chinese and Russian arms shipments to Sudan in breach of a UN embargo are true, then this post about the rising Chinese influence in Africa seems properly wrought, including the pointy title part about "Proxy Wars Over Good Governance". From the AP via the cutely named Seattle Post Intelligencer:

A top human rights group accused China and Russia on Tuesday of violating a U.N. arms embargo by supplying Sudan with weapons and equipment that were used to fuel deadly violence against civilians in Darfur and neighboring Chad. (...) The report said "the bulk" of the arms used in Darfur and Chad were transferred from China and Russia, with Sudan importing $83 million in arms from Beijing and $34.7 million in military equipment from Moscow in 2005, the latest available figures. It did not provide specific up-to-date figures. "The irresponsible transfer of arms to Sudan and its neighbors are a significant factor in the massive human rights catastrophe in Darfur and its spread into eastern Chad," London-based Amnesty said in a statement. (...)

Amnesty said it was particularly concerned about Russian Mi-24 helicopter gunships acquired by the Sudan air force that were allegedly being used to launch attacks in Darfur. The report included a photo, allegedly from March, of three Chinese "Fantan" fighter jets on the tarmac of an airport in Nyala in southern Darfur. It said the aircraft were "specifically designed to be used for ground attack operations." Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said Beijing does not sell arms to regions under a U.N. embargo. She said China's weapons sales to Africa were made to sovereign nations and were "very limited and small in scale" but refused to say specifically how much was sold to Sudan. (...)

The Amnesty report followed the leaking of a U.N. report last month asserting that Sudan's government was flying attack aircraft, painted white to resemble U.N. planes, and other military equipment into Darfur against the embargo. Sudan denied the claims. Following that report, the U.S. and Britain began leading a push for new sanctions against Sudan if it continues to refuse to deploy U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. An ill-equipped and understaffed African Union force is patrolling the western Sudan region. Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir has refused calls for a joint U.N.-AU force, although he recently agreed to let the U.N. send 3,000 peacekeepers to Darfur, backed by six helicopter gunships.

Both Russia and China, which have close trade ties with Sudan, oppose the U.S.-British sanctions proposal. China - which buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil exports - is facing increasing international pressure to use its influence in Sudan to pressure Khartoum into stopping the violence. "Nobody has the leverage that the Chinese do - not the Arab League, not the U.S., not the EU. It's the Chinese; they're the ones," said Eric Reeves, a Sudan expert at Smith College in Massachusetts.

From the post from April 2006:

China's recent African Policy document outlines an extensive interest in engaging in African development. The most notable difference from Western development policies is the absence of good governance as a leitmotiv -- and its logical counterpart, the adherence to the "Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence". The Principles support non-interference: as such they are at odds with the essence of Western development policy which posits that there can be universally applicable most-effective ways of undertaking government, i.e. "good governance". (...) [T]he most crucial countries are the natural ressource rich kleptocracies that from the outset will be least inclined to ever participate in good governance initiatives. Here, the intention of the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative already suffers from combination of the Chinese need for oil and the willfully blind perspective of the Five Principles. In short, the good governance agenda looks set to really suffer from China's African engagement. And unfortunately, that effect will be the same elsewhere too.

If the Chinese (and Russians) are really flushing weapons - including gunships and A10-like fixed-wing aircraft - into Sudan in spite of the UN embargo, this is a clear example of a proxy war in spe. Even if the responsible partners in global security management (UN, NATO) are struggling to find the ressources necessary to help stop the conflict, there is no doubt - viz. the embargo - that these same actors agree about the basic goals and values that the challenge represents. How ironic that I meant the 'proxy wars' over good governance to be taken mostly metaphorically. China must step up to the plate of responsibility here - but as written in the post quoted, this is unlike to to happen as long as there is something as the five principles (and a craving for ressources).

Shaping: Clever Slide and New Name

Just a few notes on the coming Shaping JOC. There is a remarkably clever graphic in the 2005 JFCOM capstone document which clearly deserves wider attention. It shows the move from a sequential conception of conflict management (like wagons on a train) to a parallel conceptualization; and also a move from a purely military to an integrated, political conceptualization of the conflict phases. Note e.g. the role of Stabilization and Reconstruction in violet and orange. I can only blame myself for not flipping through the appendixes earlier, but here goes:

Phases, however, tend to imply a sequential approach to campaigns with an associated lack of flexibility and inadequately reflect the importance of integrated effort among all interagency players. The CCJO acknowledges that “complex adaptive” adversaries and other situations will demand an integrated and flexible approach. A new campaign framework should provide a means to plan, execute and assess campaigns in an integrated manner. This appendix retains the traditional phase titles and includes proposed new phase titles--portrayed as lines of effort (Figure D-1).
Instead of showing these lines of effort in a traditional horizontal array, however, it stacks them vertically, emphasizing the potential for all lines of effort to be applicable throughout a campaign. The lines of effort represent the activities in which a JFC must engage to successfully accomplish objectives during a campaign. They are titled Shape, Deter, Seize Initiative, Dominate, Stabilize and Enable Civil Authority. The aggregate of all lines of effort equate to the full level of effort necessary (in planning or execution) or available (in execution or assessment) to accomplish objectives. (...)

The simultaneous execution of activities within each line of effort reinforces the need to continuously consider activities across all lines of effort during campaign planning and execution. This approach also captures the proportionate levels of activity that may be required to achieve priority objectives. In so doing, it helps the JFC visualize the required activities for future transitions and subsequent operations, reflecting increasing or decreasing levels of effort. As the campaign is executed, the JFC acquires knowledge, extends reach and creates effects. Concurrently, the JFC assesses the changing operational environment and varies the amount of effort within each applicable line while focusing on a series of priority objectives that contribute to achieving the strategic objective. The level of effort will vary depending on the type of operation, and the actual events that occur. Figure D-2 depicts a proportional level of effort for a notional campaign where actual events have modified the framework from what was originally planned (Figure D-1).
Lines of effort demonstrate a more sophisticated approach the future joint force could take in planning, executing, and analyzing campaigns. Although all lines of effort are considered concurrently, some lines will be given priority due to their relevance to the specific objectives assigned. Identifying priorities will help the JFC allocate and re-allocate resources between lines of effort. Figures 1 and 2 reflect the likely need for multiple instruments of national power to engage based on the objectives and therefore helps reinforce the need to integrate interagency activities throughout the campaign.

The 'lines of operation' concept necessitates a broader civil-military (or: properly strategic) conceptualization of conflict. It therefore basically synthesizes the basic challenge in modern warfare and conflict management we are faced with. This includes the clausewitzian goals of transitioning to and from civil ownership of the aggregate process, and the implication of COIN approximate wider political, administrative and economic means and ends. These thoughts looks like a path way toward what Antulio J. Echevarria called for - from a way of battle to a way of war in a proper clausewitzian (i.e. political) context.

Another thing is that apparently, it is likely that the JOC will have its name changed as 'shaping' carries a too meddling connotation. The possible change is understandable to the extent that it follows the same logic as the CENTCOM reasoning behind giving up on the Long War concept.

But it is less sensible if the change merely results in newspeak, i.e. if the JOC will not refer to actual "meddling" practices (with the risk of rendering the exercise futile). Of course, we are here in the midst of the whole, very politically laden "post colonial" debate - over sovereignty. Personally, I'm all for calling things what they are - and it seems that some euphemisms in the development policy circuit could be done without. But that is (albeit only slightly) a different matter.

MountainRunner Breaches Petraeus' Wall

MountainRunner picks apart Gen. Petraeus' security wall in Baghdad:

Can the tactical mistakes get any worse? Building a wall around Baghdad's communities, starting with Al a'zamiyah, or Adhamiya? The prime contractor may as well have been Arbeit Macht Der-Frei Gmbh as the idea of partitioning any part of the city devastates any chance for peace, or "victory" if you prefer. This is another brick in a different kind of wall, the wall of moral legitimacy and strategic appreciation of the requirements to succeed. Neither political nor military doctrine or logic can justify this folly. (...)

At best, this is an attempt to recreate the strategic hamlet program from Vietnam, and even British fortresses in the Sudan and Afghanistan a century and a half ago. But this isn't the countryside and these are not autonomous units to be caged. To say there are "serious problems" with the gated communities, as Anthony Cordesman puts it, is an understatement. Cordesman notes partitioning in Ulster and the Balkans brought security but at a significant cost. Sadly, Ambassador Crocker defended the plan as a means "to try and identify where the fault lines are and where avenues of attack lie and set up the barriers literally to prevent those attacks." A tactical tool at best, al-Hayat quoted several Iraqi officials who defended the strategy, claiming that building such walls will "give security forces a bigger chance of executing their military missions."

Go read the whole thing here.

EDIT: Noah Schachtman caught up on this great post too - here, at Wired's blogs.

Central Command Drops "Long War" Moniker

Launched as a cornerstone notion to replace the GWOT, the "Long War" concept has been with us for few years. Central Command has now, according to the New York Times, dropped it as the aggregate name for what is also known as the GSAVE - Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Michael R. Gordon also reports that the change comes solely at the level of Central Command, not Pentagon or the White House - but in parallel with e.g. the wish of the UK.

Military officials said that cultural advisers at the command had become concerned that the concept of a long war alienated Middle East audiences by suggesting that the United States would keep a large number of forces in the region indefinitely.

Admiral Fallon was also said to have been unenthusiastic about the phrase. He has stressed the importance of focusing on the difficult situation in Iraq and in achieving results as soon as possible. The notion of a long war, in contrast, seemed to connote an extended conflict in which Iraq was but a chapter.

The change “is a product of our ongoing effort to use language that describes the conflict for our Western audience while understanding the cultural implications of how that language is construed in the Middle East,” Lt. Col. Matthew McLaughlin, a spokesman for the command, said in an e-mail message. “The idea that we are going to be involved in a ‘Long War,’ at the current level of operations, is not likely and unhelpful.”

“We remain committed to our friends and allies in the region and to countering Al Qaeda-inspired extremism where it manifests itself, but one of our goals is to lessen our presence over time. We didn’t feel that the term ‘Long War’ captured this nuance,” he added.

This more anthopological - or, oh, politically adept or holistic or effects based - approach to the semantics of military action is highly welcome. But as the article notes in conclusion: there is not yet any good replacement candidate. At least one half of the old term captured a very true perspective about the struggle: it will not go away. Even so, the other half was definitely problematic as the "war" part in reality looks more like the metaphorical "war on drugs" than a classic state-on-state piece of warfare.

The threat that we are facing is still a reaction to the increasing connectivity of globalization - and the solutions are even more polticial than military (even if they will likely include a lot of military components): OECDification of the rest of the world - shrinking the Gap - will not happen overnight.

Ghani to Replace Wolfowitz?

Ashraf Ghani, the former Afghan contender for the job as UN Secretary General is now in play again - this time as the US candidate to replace Wolfowitz as chief of the World Bank. Having the US's support is the surefire way to get the job as the US traditionally decides who gets the WB top post, while the Europeans in practice appoint the IMF boss. Here from The Australian:

THE future of World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz was in further jeopardy yesterday after it emerged the White House was drawing up a list of candidates to succeed him. The most prominent potential replacement is Ashraf Ghani, credited with overhauling the economy of Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US. Such an appointment would mark the first time a non-American has held the position in the 60-year history of the global bank. Senior officials in the US administration have noted that the White House is softening its support for Mr Wolfowitz, President George W.Bush's former deputy defence secretary. They pointed yesterday to the silence of the Treasury Department and Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, as a sign of the administration's attempt to distance itself from the man it parachuted into the job in 2005. (...)

Mr Ghani was special adviser to the World Bank between 1991 and 2002. After the overthrow of the Taliban, he was Afghan finance minister for two years, carrying out extensive reforms, including issuing a new currency, balancing the budget and overhauling the Treasury's systems. Currently Chancellor of Kabul University, he was a candidate to replace Kofi Annan as UN secretary-general last year but lost out to Ban Ki-moon, of South Korea. Mr Ghani was described then as someone with a strong record as an administrator. As well as the first non-American chief of the World Bank, he would also be the first Muslim in the job.

Draconian Observations strongly supported Ghani's candidature for UNSG, and of course also supports him this time around. More than a mere competent administrator as described above he is a producer of policy ideas in his own right, and as such 'gets' what it means to be innovative - but most importantly, as few practitioners he understands the defining feature of our time: the convergence between security and development. The previous posts on Ghani can be found here.

Ghani Runs For UNSG And Deserves To Win

Ashraf Ghani has decided to run for UNSG, today’s Financial Times reports. This is good news: Ghani is by far the most interesting candidate in the field. FT quotes him as arguing for the candidature with the exact element other candidates are missing:

“I hope to win, through ideas,” Mr Ghani told the Financial Times. “In the public debate so far, I have yet to see a clear articulation of vision, an analysis of the central issues and a programme for change.”

The problem goes futher than Ghani’s diagnosis: the absence of concrete and strategic visions for the UN is also a sign that the general ability to generate ideas and initiatives later on is probably low. If you cannot get an idea when you need one, you need a different job.

The coming UNSG is faced with a number of challenges, some immediate — operational and organizational — and some more abstract. Ghani’s record in Afghanistan e.g. speaks clearly about his ability for running a multilateral, multi-stakeholder process with both heavy security and development repercussions. Most of the present candidates are of course likely to be solid administrators who can deal with immediate and running operational challenges. But Ghani is furthermore both brave and original: take e.g. this BBC piece about his intervention at last year’s TED global, including a critique of the redundancies of the development and aid industry.

The capacity to deal with the immediate and longer term organizational challenges — the reform agenda — however, is tied up with the more abstract challenges facing the UN. The short version of this is that security and development are converging. In strategic terms, political solutions are needed first to complement globalization’s integrative pull, not least in terms of creating effective states that can allow their citizens to prosper — a long term challenge that, once lifted, will at the same time alleviate the security problems associated with weak and failed states. Second, they are needed to orchestrate globalization as an integration of relations between the ‘old world’ and the ‘emerging’ powers and markets — in order to avoid a return to pre-WWI big power politics. In operational terms, enabling effective states is also the emerging necessary goal of any military conflict or post-conflict situation. The new military lessons learned of Phase IV and Peace Operations emphasize the parallel effort of stabilization and reconstruction. At both levels, security and development are increasingly tied to together.

The upshot of this convergence is that the next UNSG must have both practical operational experience with either agenda, and also a calibrated capacity for horizontal thinking. Horizontal thinking is Thomas Barnett’s term for pragmatic agility in terms of eschewing the stove-piped specialization of academics. All bureaucrats tend to think of themselves as productive generalists. But academic ability is crucial: the ability to not only grasp the largest global trends but also to pose productive solution-frameworks is rare among non-academics (as it is among academics in general who falter on the second element, but that is another story).

Ghani’s track-record is well-established here: take e.g. this new piece co-written with Claire Lockhart for the Washington Quarterly. Go read it, and then ask yourself whether you would rather have a person who can think like that at the helm of the UN — or someone who might be bothered to read it?

Ashraf Ghani seems to be the right man for the job. He appears organizationally and intellectually astute enough to deal with the member states’ cross-pressures regarding the reform agenda at both the UN and in development policy. Furthermore, he understands the necessitas of security: that security issues and logics sometimes intrude on ‘regular’ politics and policies, and that this should be if not always heeded then at least willingly mediated. A UNSG without this insight would leave the organization crippled.

This post is cross-posted at UNSG.org. Thanks to Tony Fleming for the invitation to become guest editor at UNSG.org.

Global Health Reform: BOT Model for Private Institution Building

Interesting analysis in today's FT: Roger England, who is "founder and director of HLSP, a specialist healthcare consultancy, and is forming a new institute on health policy in developing countries" (and most likely looking for funding for his new institute or consulting fees, and not related to Gordon England) writes that "The world spends too much on the fight against Aids".

In 2004, 21 per cent of all health aid was allocated to HIV, up from 8 per cent in 2000, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. It could now easily exceed one-quarter of all health aid, and is the only disease to have its own United Nations agency, UNAIDS. Is this justified? In 2001, HIV/Aids represented 5 per cent of the burden of disease in low- and middle-income countries as measured by disability-adjusted life years lost, a measure combining reduced life expectancy and quality of life. This compares with 3 per cent each for tuberculosis and malaria and 6 per cent each for respiratory infections and perinatal conditions. Are HIV interventions so much more cost-effective to justify this disproportionate spending? Probably not.

Now, I have no clue as to whether a) the numbers are correct (but FT probably fact checks), or b) how the disability-adjusted life years lost are estimated and if they include e.g. the dynamic effects of slowly damaging diseases as opposed to faster killing ones. Given that these are ok -- and even if they're not, then the point just gets restricted to the general level -- this column is a fine example of fact-based argumentation, which is a) the necessary basis for any kind of prioritization, b) pretty wanting at least in the public political debates surrounding almost any subject. Bjorn Lomborg's Copenhagen Consensus conference was one example of such an attempt at estimating which bigger issues to tackle first.

In principle any IGO, any NGO, any GO, should not only deliver annual reports showing how much they spent on what. They should also publish a formalized, externally conducted "what if" review of the strategic choices represented in the annual reports that should include uncovering factual bases for these choices -- and spell out alternative possibilities and their bases.

England's concrete reform proposals are quite sweeping, and interesting for the specific case:

Two big changes are needed if the rich world's recent concern with the health of Africa is to achieve results. First, there must be country mechanisms integrating all health funding and allocating it where it will do most good, whether to state or non-state service providers. There have been attempts at this with so-called sector-wide approaches in which all donor and government funding is pooled and spent according to an agreed strategy. They have had some success but have been weakened by lack of co-operation by some donors and management by health ministries with vested interests. But they have potential. A small Caribbean island, Anguilla, is engaged in a bold programme in which healthcare is no longer provided directly by government. An independent national purchasing agency will receive all health funding, combining government revenues and social health insurance contributions, to procure care for the population by contracting the best value-for-money services available.

The second big change needed is in the structure of aid. Independent national purchasing agencies would impose some discipline on donors, many of whom over-fund HIV programmes because it is fashionable. But the role of key players is unclear and their structures deficient. Some 75 global funds and partnerships target single communicable diseases, creating massive co-ordination challenges at country level. Along with these, the UN runs Aids-related projects (using donor funds). Vast swaths of the UN's Aids-related bureaucracy could be abolished or privatised. However, there is no international agency capable of supporting health-sector restructuring. The World Bank could shift its focus but this would require a structural shift from project funding to strategic support. Rationalisation of the UN and international agencies is needed and must be led by the donors, for the agencies have no incentive to reform themselves. After Toronto, donors could make a start by questioning why we have UNAIDS, the agency promoting HIV as exceptional instead of just another disease, resulting in distorted funding and weakening health systems. [Emphasis added.]

Probably the WHO does not agree with England's second point. And probably focusing on strengthening non-state or directly private health care institutional infrastructure is not the way forward in countries where the state building is part of the larger solution.

But what if OECD organizations -- private companies, IGOs, NGOs -- are better at building efficient corporate institutions -- both free of corruption and infused with esprit de corps -- than the local states? Then maybe one way to improve third world health care systems could be the BOT-model (build-operate-transfer) used in traffic infrastructure? This especially given that the private enterprises -- or IGOs or NGOs or a mix -- build on, educate and retain local/domestic personnel for the operations.

Ghani Would Be Good For UN: FT Op-Ed On Reconstruction

Among the various candidatures either vented, expected or encouraged for the next UN Secretary General, the best looking is Ashraf Ghani, present Chancellor of Kabul University. My arguments for a Ghani candidature have been mentioned before (Next UNSG: Ghani and the Scandinavians plus Next UNSG Must Know Security) so the reason I bring him up here is his recent op/ed-piece in the Financial Times: "Afghanistan has the assets to regain momentum" (subscribers only, but sabawoon.com brings the whole text here):

There is an emerging consensus, domestic and international, that Afghanistan is likely to slide into chaos. This misses the central point: there are assets in place that, if organised coherently, could re-establish momentum towards creating a stable, prosperous and democratic Afghanistan. If failure is not an option for the international community, attention must be focused on renewing Afghans’ trust in a bright future to make them active partners in the fight against violence and disorder. The problem has arisen from failure to adapt to a changed context, loss of momentum in pursuing a credible programme of development and mis-calibrated use of violence. (...)

What are the elements of a strategy? Hamid Karzai, president, and his government have a choice: act decisively and become founding fathers of a dignified nation or go down as those who squandered a golden chance. They must show commitment to rule of law and accountability. First, they must establish a supreme court that is a model of independence. Second, they must confront corruption through a commission of Afghan and international people who could investigate allegations at the highest levels and impose sanctions. Third, they must pursue good governance. Fourth, they must build equality of opportunity for the young generation. Fifth, security strategy must be overhauled.

Regional support must be renewed: in particular, Pakistan should be persuaded that stability in Afghanistan provides the basis of its own stability and prosperity. The imbalance between military and developmental expenditure by the international community needs to be redressed, with new mechanisms that would reinvigorate the Afghans’ energies for reconstructing their country. As the key to prosperity lies in regional trade and investment, the Gulf countries could play an important role. While use of force is going to be required, it must be placed within a comprehensive strategy of state-building. The anti-drugs strategy must be revisited to ensure it is aligned with the overall objective.

Ghani's expertise in state-building and reconstruction operations is clear as he recommends a wiser use of force (viz. the debate on the political nature of counterinsurgency where the centre of gravity is always the hearts and minds, as argued e.g. here); and a balancing of expenditures on military and civil means. Interestingly for his theoretical candidature, he smartly doesn't critize the US directly, but keeps to challenging the Karzai administration with pretty sound and concrete advice. Most importantly the piece shows his commitment not only to Afghanistan -- but also to the crucial combination of development and security embodied in the reconstruction task.

Understanding the challenge of the convergence of security and development will be essential for any coming UN Secretary General. Without knowledge of both development and security in practice (and, as Ghani has, also preferrably in theory) there is less of a chance that the UNSG will succeed. The next UNSG will have to deal with development as much as geopolitics -- and the other way around. Since most stakeholders seem to focus on either side of the coin diplomatic skills and a sense of urgency for either agenda, and their converging trend, is utterly important.

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Later update on the concrete case: al-Zawahri calls for attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan ("Al-Qaeda Leader Calls for Afghan Rebellion", Washington Post); while Karzai echoes Ghani's critique of the present tactics ("Karzai Calls for Reassessing U.S. Strategy", from AP).

Next UNSG Must Know Security

The last post contained a few reflections on who might be the next UN Secretary General; pointed to Ghani as the best present choice; and speculated a bit about theoretical Scandinavian dark horses. But, instead of guessing names, which tendencies and structural demands can be established for the selection?* If the UN is to retain or regain the standing it had during the 1990s as a medium of choice for international politics the next UNSG has to be able to embrace a proactive, not just a defensive agenda. It seems there are at least four elements:

The Basics: The next UNSG must be able to cope with a defensive agenda as a minimum. The first UNSG post quoted an FT article out of Davos with positionings by a few candidates, which pointed out that the coming UNSG must be able to handle several challenges at the same time. Sorting these into categories, the following defensive agenda emerges: Be a diplomat: "Cater to great powers, disgruntled middle-income countries and the developing world"; "balance US objectives with the rest of the world’s suspicion of US motives"; "deal with a rising China and India"; "have mental strength to absorb savage criticism for events sometimes out of his or her control". Be an administrator: "Push through major institutional reforms"; "expand operations around the world"; "do this amid US congressional demands for managerial change following the oil-for-food and other corruption scandals"; "develop new tools to cope with: nuclear proliferation, international terrorism, human rights atrocities, persistent poverty, disease and environmental degradation".

The Politically Correct Demands: According to the site of reference concerning the next UNSG (http://www.unsg.org/), two general expectations or hopes seem to be widespread: that the next UNSG be Asian and/or a woman. The former demand is probably more in play than the latter just by virtue of the stakeholders. Truth is, the taking turns argument is not an old institution: it was invented as part of the argumentation of why Perez de Cuellar should have the post. The Asian countries will of course defend whatever candidate emerges, but the claim is not enshrined.

The Secret Stuff: While all of the other countries do have a say, it is both difficult to imagine possible and would be very counterproductive for the UN to get a candidate which the US cannot greenlight. One element, though can help making the US accept a given candidate -- and it is said that this has always been the case -- would be if the US "had something" on the person (e.g. Hammerskjöld, Waldheim and de Cuellar).

The Post 9/11 Demands: While the defensive agenda -- being a diplomat and an administrator -- is necessary but not sufficient, the final weight of the two next groups is harder to gauge. What we can say with some certainty, though, is that in the post-9/11 context, the UN faces some challenges very different from those it did during both the Cold War and the 1990s intermission. The UN and its backers wish to retain or regain its or parts of its status as a the reference global mediating institution as it looked to be for a while in the 1990s. As written elsewhere, this is unlikely to happen: 9/11 meant that the relative American indifference of the 1990s was over, and that DC recaptured the initiative taking role. Instead, the G8 along with other more ad hoc decision making circuits is likely to figure as the forum of choice. Yet, nevertheless, UN reform is extremely important for those parts of the global agenda that the UN runs, i.e. large chunks of development.

This means, that the next UNSG cannot merely stick with the largely defensive agenda that the FT article stakes out. The UN has to be able to deliver in terms of security politics, not just as a function of American wishes, but, in order to be a bridgebuilder, proactively deliver on American promises in ways that accomodate or sufficiently satisfies both the US and the other players. Effectively, the next UNSG must be bold enough to bring forth policy proposals very early on in these policy processes.

And here is the problem: Candidates who have only worked with "civil affairs" would probably be less readily receptive to the function of security as a policy domain. Getting a new UNSG with strong preferences for the development agenda is important -- and many development people probably would love one that would also "stick it to the rich countries" once in a while -- but this can easily backfire in terms of the UN's relative standing as a problem solving forum. So, the next UNSG must not only be a diplomat and an administrator, be well-versed in development but also have in-depth experience with security in situations when push comes to shove. Merely having been a foreign minister might not be enough.

* = Update: Richard Holbrooke has had his say on the subject in the Washington Post: Holbrooke insists on the Asian claim, and offers both a number of candidates and more general reflections.

A Conservative/Left-Wing Convergence on State-Building

In an oped piece in the Washington Post Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart reiterates the points from their september LICUS-report: nation-building - i.e. the construction of efficient and legitimate states - must be the central development task concerning the weakest and poorest of states. Nation-building - or, as it should be properly: state-building - thus steps in as an alternative to the choice between project-based development in peaceful states and the purer military logic of interventions. Interestingly, the oped takes it point of departure in a general reflection looking very much like the Fukuyama-End-of-History cum Kaplan-Coming-Anarchy perspective found in Tom Barnett's grand strategic analysis:

In 1945 the future of capitalism as the organizational form of the economy and democracy as the organizational form of the polity was far from certain in the advanced industrialized world. Today there is a remarkable consensus on both the preferred economic and political forms. With globalization of the media, the benefits of membership in the wealthy democratic club are beamed daily to the homes of billions of people who in turn aspire to the economic opportunities and political freedoms that the market economies and democratic societies have delivered to their citizens.

Yet the daily experience of so many people in poor countries is confrontation with the realities of failing or fragile states, criminalized and informal economies, and the denial of basic freedoms. It is not resentment of the West but exclusion from the right to make decisions in their own countries that feeds the resentment of the poor. At the same time, the networks of violence that have declared war on the security and order of ordinary people in the developed world are making use of the territory of failed states to expand their bases of destruction.

The path to security is not just investment in the institutions of security. The price tag for security in a fragile state can quickly run into billions of dollars a year. A sustained analysis by NATO of the best means of achieving security in Afghanistan showed that credible institutions and public finance would contribute more to security than would the deployment of troops. Nor is the answer money alone; in these countries, money cannot be translated to capital, because such things as the rule of law, transparency and predictability are lacking. The state is the most effective, economical way of organizing the security and well-being of a population, just as the company is the most effective approach in a competitive economy.

Thus the need for functioning states has become one of the critical issues of our times.

The argument about the centrality of failed states in a security politics perspective has been stated repeatedly over the last years as in the report by the Commission on Failed States and US National Security - and of course, most importantly, in the National Security Strategy of 2002.

What is interesting about Ghani's, Lockhart's and Carnahan's original background report is both the UN/development origins of the perspective and the fairly hands-on analysis of what is required of a functioning, legitimate state-as-always-unfinished-process:

In the interdependent world of today, states must perform a constellation of interrelated functions that range from provision of citizenship rights to promotion of the enabling environment for the private sector, in marked contrast to the one-dimensional function of ensuring security which they performed in the 19^th century. This section outlines ten core functions that we propose a state must perform in the modern world.

These functions are: (1) legitimate monopoly on the means of violence; (2) administrative control; (3) management of public finances; (4) investment in human capital; (5) delineation of citizenship rights and duties; (6) provision of infrastructure services; (7) formation of the market; (8) management of the state’s assets (including the environment, natural resources, and cultural assets); (9) international relations (including entering into international contracts and public borrowing); (10) rule of law. Other functions may be required to be performed at particular moments, such as the repatriation and integration of refugees and those displaced, and transitional justice.

When the state performs these functions in an integrated fashion, a virtuous circle is created in which state decisions in the different domains bolster overall enfranchisement and opportunity for the citizenry. By contrast, failure to perform one or many of these functions leads to the creation and acceleration of a vicious circle.

Thus, the development perspective shows a way out, where the security perspective is better suited at pointing out problems to focus on - because the latter tends to be locked into problems of power balances rather than power management. One thing that has changed since the mid-90s Human Security project started picking up speed within the UN circuit is that this recipe for creating welfare has changed as the underlying problem - the weak and failed states - shifted from being a humanitarian to a security problem in the eyes of the West.

The change is discrete but profound: from proposing that the human condition of others was as vital as security politics without bridging the necessity gap gap between the two - including the problem of self-sustainable economic development and as such be perhaps morally well founded yet more utopian than realistic - it has gone on to incorporate the underpinnings of capitalist democracy.

Another interesting point here, is the alignment between moderate conservatives (as Francis Fukuyama: State-Building) and the left wing: the traditional pro-state and pro-structure paternalism of both camps fits handlily together in the search for better functioning states, to better care for their citizens as a means to stability - and the other way around.