Nagl: Teach a Man to Fish

In the new issue of Armed Forces Journal, John Nagl argues that we should focus more on host nation training units to meet the demands of the long war. Incidentally, that is one of the things that the new, no-longer-Shaping but CSE or Cooperative Security & Engagement JOC from JFCOM will be about (more on that debacle in this post). The operational elements of this in terms of major conflicts was in principle described back in the old SSTR JOC as a development on Internal Defense Operations. But this will be about both the peace time version (African peace ops capacity building, i.e. like ACOTA (CRS report, pdf file from FAS) and the war version (Afghanistan, where both Brits and Americans have integrated commands).

Nagl points to hwo these functions have traditionally been carried out by special forces; but that the demand has grown so much that regular forces should be educated and trained in these matters. Ultimately, the whole thing is about what I said the CSE JOC would end up being about: development in the shape of just (and hence:) stable states:

The Long War is ultimately a war of ideas. Strong partners with institutions that work toward political and economic development and reflect respect for human dignity present one of the best weapons to wage such a war. Enabling and empowering our partners through security force assistance coordinated within an interagency framework supports national policy goals and national security. Embracing a new adviser force structure and adviser education is the answer we need for the hard questions of this new era.

Of course, the private sector is and has been delivering a lot of the peace time training - and it seems likely that this is the way to go for small countries who would wish to retain a fighting force. Like Denmark e.g.

Three Phases of Afghanistan and Poppy Strategies

Strategies for dealing with the poppy economy in Afghanistan exist (like this recent one by WB/DfID: Afghanistan: Economic Incentives and Development Initiatives to Reduce Opium Production) but have been notoriously difficult to implement.*

Poppies matter in Afghanistan. Can Afghanistan be "fixed" without fixing the poppy economy? Probably not. But is that question actually relevant at all? Do we have to deal with the poppy economy now? That all depends on what we are doing when in Afghanistan. "Afghanistan" as policy problem in historical can be divided into three phases:

1) Invasion, toppling, counterinsurgency, contested state-building by NATO and 'world society'.
2) Counterinsurgency, contested state-building by 'host nation', i.e. Afghan state.
3) Development.

We are still in 1), and consequently our effort should go toward getting to 2). That means hard core focus on capacity building in Afghanistan - first and foremost security forces, both ANA and ANP, but also all the other elements necessary to sustain and control these forces, i.e. rule of law instruments and a reasonably functional central, regional and local administration, plus an acceptable political process.

If that's true, then maybe the real question concerning strategies for poppy economics is that it shouldn't be dealt with now. Or at least only to the extent that it matters for the Taleban/insurgents. Maybe we should even leave it alone for a while - maybe we only risk fostering more resistance that will hamper the phasing from 1) to 2)?

In the end, those questions ought to be part of the national debates about general strategies for dealing with "Afghanistan" in NATO countries.

* The Danish Institute for Military Studies' Afghan Index contains a useful collection of Afghan data.

JFCOM: Shaping Ambition (Sort of) Implodes

(NB! There's a follow up to this post, here.)
The US Defense establishment does not want to do development any more. Or maybe a bit anyway. Those are the signals coming out from JFCOM concerning the - still - coming JOC on 'Shaping'.* Except for the the fact that it will no longer be called 'Shaping' but the much less ambitious 'Military Support to Cooperative Security'. In principle the ambition moves from managing fair statebuilding processes that actively helps popular inclusion into the state project (i.e. development) to security sector reform in various guises. That may be deplorable, as in a missed chance. As I wrote over a year ago:

The creation of African Command (AFRICOM) is accompanied by a the development of a new Joint Operating Concept (JOC) with potentially huge ramifications for the continent and for the whole development sector -- including the largest non-American partners, from the national development agencies (DfID, Danida, etc) over the EU and especially the UN to of course the 'host nations' in particularly Africa. This new JOC is called Shaping.

The initial JFCOM ambitions for Shaping were described as:

Scope: This JOC will focus on the actions a joint force commander might take in the context of unified action to advance US interests by:

• building partnership capacity
• influencing non-partners and potential adversaries
• mitigating the underlying causes of conflict and extremism; and
• setting the conditions that enable rapid action when military intervention is required

Proposed Solution: The Joint Force, as a part of a larger multinational and interagency effort, conducts continuous, anticipatory shaping operations that build partnerships with governmental, nongovernmental, regional and international organizations and reduce the drivers of conflict and instability in order to prevent or mitigate conflict or other crises and set the conditions for success in other operations—all aimed at a secure global environment favorable to US interests.

My ensuing conclusion was:

How do you '[mitigate] the underlying causes of conflict and extremism', and 'mitigate conflict and other crises'? Well, this is exactly the work of the aggregate development organisations: from the UKs PCRU and USAID plus international NGOs like the ICG to more long-term development organisations like UNDP. Mitigating underlying causes of conflict means addressing grievances before they turn into rebellion ... it means strengthening the local state so that it delivers to its citizens: from basic infrastructure, a working, stable and sustainable economy that provides jobs, rule of law and a decent political system.

The Pentagon will have their hands full -- and it is extremely important that they get the conceptual thinking right here. I hope the drafters will consult leading civilian development and political science experts and the extensive social science insights inside the CIA. (...)

On the civilian side, including the whole of the development universe: You better wake up and follow this development closely. The Pentagon has so much logistical and funding clout that if the Shaping concept does indeed get feet, then there will be some very real opportunities to move the development agenda forward.

And now, it seems, JFCOM has somewhat cold feet. Look at the JFCOM slide (ppt) below and then a quote from a testimony to the House Armed Services Committee (pdf) definition of the work on the Shaping (i.e. CS/CSE) JOC by Rear Admiral Dan Davenport:

- Draft Military Support to Cooperative Security, (CS JOC) focuses on how the Joint Force Commander contributes to fostering a security environment favorable to U.S. interests as well as establishing a base for effective crisis response. It addresses the full range of military support to a comprehensive, whole of government approach. “CS is defined as the set of continuous, long-term integrated, comprehensive actions among a broad spectrum of U.S. and international governmental and non-governmental partners that maintains or enhances stability, prevents or mitigates crises, and enables other operations when crises occur.”

As is visible the ambitions are curtailed a bit. Mostly, the military role will be either supporting or in the shape of defense reform.

Nevertheless, the notion of prevention and whole of government enabling still seems to smell a bit of converging the security and development agendas - so that the aggregate US foreign policy elements might get to play together in a kind of preventive COIN operation at the strategic level in given countries.

Managing the successful integration of the people into the state is the surest way to achieve stability. That is so because then the third element of the Clausewitzian trinity (state, people/nation, army) - the armed forces - will not be challenged from the inside but answer to a state that is legitimate because it deals with its citizens in a way that corresponds to their make up - in terms of both relative quantity (population mix) and quality (culture(s)).

The focus on interagency in the testimony is completely right. But I just hope that the NSPD44 does not become an excuse for not developing advanced strategic understanding of the anthropological and political scientific underpinnings of conflict prevention and state failure at the top of the US military. These insights are the most cost effective way for the US defense to deal with the conflicts that are not related to the big power and technological warfare paradigm, i.e. not least (for AFRICOM) in Africa.

NB! There's a follow up to this post, here.

________________
* = A JOC or Joint Operating Concept, is a kind of generalized Field Manual, a pure and joint doctrine. The hierarchy of the JFCOM concepts can be seen here. The former Shaping JOC is number 6 in the left column:

NB! There's a follow up to this post, here.

UK's New NSS and NSC: Lessons for Scandinavia

The brilliant and insightful Charlie Edwards at GlobalDashboard Monday told us all about today's announcement (not, its not out as of yet) of the new UK National Security Strategy:

This Wednesday the British Government will publish the UK’s first ever National Security Strategy. This is a big moment for Gordon Brown and comes with great expectations. Don’t be surprised if there is no Minister on the Today Programme discussing the strategy’s pros and cons on Wednesday morning - this will be Gordon Brown’s opportunity to kill lots of birds with one mighty strategic stone (so lets hope he does wait and announce it in Parliament).

Dignity and gravitas will ooze from every pore of the front bench as Brown steps up to the dispatch box and announces the strategy. MPs from all sides of the House will nod and mouth their agreement. In the gallery sketch writers will pen columns for Thursday’s newspapers about how important Parliament is. For a brief moment the Government will look in complete control of its destiny - polls will even show the Labour party jump ahead of the Conservatives.

Some British newspapers are already trailing the announcement. The Telegraph suggests that ‘a national security council will be created, staffed by senior politicians including, potentially, individuals from other parties, intelligence and military chiefs, and scientific experts.. and that Paddy Ashdown has been suggested as a possible leading opposition figure with the experience to be invited to serve alongside senior Government ministers’.

The National Security Council bit is the perhaps most interesting part. The process more than the actual documents all clearly the most inventive parts intended with the Dutch and Canadian security strategies and the French Defense White Paper. Process is here to be understood not only as a process of creation (of the document) but also a process of evaluation (of its priorities).

Together these things will make possible a more thoroughly democratic debate on what is essentially political choices in international security (the 'wars of choice' in Iraq and Afghanistan; global warming as strategic challenge; the Arctic, etc); and a more stringent political leadership in the executive - not by civil servants. In sum, they should enable governments more effectively to face the challenges of security in a globalized world, including operational challenges such as a the interagency challenge in COIN and SSTR.

The Scandinavian countries, with their development legacy and 'moral foreign policies', more than other countries must go down this road as they need strive to conceptually converge the morality and national interest of global politics. And, in Denmark's case especially, deal with Afghanistan as war-fighting and as development.

State Department Memo on Iraq

Last post today. Just had to recommend Barnett's latest on State Dept and SSTR:

I've been hearing a lot about this memo from various political appointees and senior bureaucrats recently, with everyone saying it would be a big deal when it hit the Net. Well, now it's here and while it is truly damning, to me it's just another nail in the coffin of the idea, promoted by the HELP Commission, that somehow a better or bigger State can handle this sort of operation in the future. Nothing could be further from the truth and this memo speaks to that reality. (...)

The problem is, of course, that our State Department and U.S. foreign policy in general (meaning Bush and Cheney) are largely missing from the scene. Yes, lotsa trips and many talking points delivered, and certainly there's been a vast shuffling of paper in the Green Zone, but where is the diplomacy? The security space created by the Surge was designed to create a political space that remains unexploited and even largely unaddressed. Nowhere is this lack of effort more apparent than in the diplomatic trenches of our State Department presence on the ground in Iraq, which this memo addresses.

Iraq and Afghanistan are transforming our military, with that transformation starting to penetrate the Pentagon itself. But no such transformation is brewing within the State Department, either on the ground or in Foggy Bottom. In the end, I don't expect one to ever brew inside State and, truth be told, I'm not sure one should brew, because I don't see the logic of trying to get this institution to add on such capacity in what will inevitably be a "lesser included" manner. It didn't work at Defense and it won't work at State, even as each department is a key player in this process.

We either create a legitimate bureaucratic center of gravity for such efforts, or we'll continue to underperform.

This seems to be a widespread problem in all of the Western foreign offices. But the diplomats are not the ones who are operative, traditionally. That role befalls the state aid agencies (USAID etc): But does the DFIDs, DANIDAs and NORADs of the world accept that they are in war with the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Regarding Iraq in particular, the memo comes at the same time as Global Guerilla's reflections on the Rosen article in Rolling Stone. Discomforting. For a 100 years?

AFRICOM again

True to form we not only repeat the TicTacs but also the referrals to MountainRunner who's got the latest inside info on the new African Command. E.g.:

I attended USC's AFRICOM conference earlier this month and between panel discussions and offline conversations, I came away with a new appreciation (and hope) for the newest, and very different, command.

This is not like the other Combatant Commands (one DOD representative said they dropped "Combatant" from the title, but depending on where you look, all commands have that word or none of the commands include that adjective).

Also unlike other commands, this is "focused on prevention and not containment or fighting wars." This is, as one speaker continued, is a "risk-laden experiment" that is like an Ironman with multidisciplinary requirements and always different demands [...]. The goal, he continued, was to "keep combat troops off the continent for 50 years" because the consensus was, once troops landed on Africa, it would be extremely difficult to take them off.

Dracobs has been covering Africom of course from the early start - so check out the earlier posts, including those that project the Shaping JOC to be of central relevance for Africom. Shaping aims to do conflict prevention in the shape of grievance settlement, meaning that Pentagon has to do real political development policy.

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.

Will Europeans Block Ghani Candidature for WB Prez?

According to the WashPost the World "Bank May Vote No Confidence in Wolfowitz". One piece of information suggest that diplomatic scheming might be bad news for Ashraf Ghani who's been mentioned as the Bush administration's top of the list candidate to replace Wolfowitz in case this would become necessary:

Though prominent officials from Europe to Latin America have publicly called for Wolfowitz to go, and though the board has the power to fire him, a decisive vote would break sharply with the bank's consensus-minded culture, while presenting nettlesome questions of procedure and diplomacy. Never in the six decades of the World Bank's existence has the board removed the institution's leader, who, by tradition, is selected by the U.S. president.

In pursuing an expression of no confidence in place of a decisive vote, board members were working under instructions from the governments they represent, with major European countries intent on avoiding a fresh imbroglio with the Bush administration, senior officials said. European governments fear they could lose their right to name the head of the World Bank's sister institution, the International Monetary Fund.

The thing is: If Bush appoints Ghani, who's Afghan - and effectively ends the tradition that an American gets the top WB job - then the Europeans will be less able to defend getting to name the head of the IMF. Might that cause the Europeans to support or push for a US citizen?

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).

The Most Unsexy Headline Ever: Planning Capabilities in the Inter-Agency Process

The USG inter-agency process* is dependent upon the planning capabilities of the Pentagon - and maybe it shouldn't be. Increasingly, the inter-agency process is the center of gravity for the United States' aggregate security capabilities (for simplifying reasons, let's stick here to the functional phases of conflict as conceptualized within US defense - phases zero to IV. Obviously, not all conflicts contain use of armed force). But only the US Department of Defense has extensive planning and business development sections working on generalized and concrete preparations for pre-conflict and post-conflict issues.

No-one doubts that the US rules phase III - major combat operations. But the US is not amassing the potential power it has for phases zero and IV. The latter refers to postconflict and the former to preconflict. To each of these belong at set of tasks that are more or less well-described and more or less well-understood. Post-conflict is a more well-described in terms of probable solutions and possibly better understood than pre-conflict. This is because post-conflict is more clearly a challenge for concrete organizations - ours, at least to begin with.

Post-conflict refers to both a complex organizational and logistic task (establishing country and government-wide administrative functioning organizations through military and civilian capabilities while/and handing them over to the host nation) and a strategic task namely identifying the wanted host national endstate, in fucntion of feasibility and ambitions (the choice is evidently shaped by political and anthropological both ramifications and limitations). To this effect, JFCOM has created the SSTR JOC which describes in general terms the challenges and is used as basis for doctrine development; Pentagon has issued the DoD Directive 3000.05, which sets SSTR Ops on par with major combat operations (i.e. the military has to be able to brak stuff efficiently and to hand over the pieces to subsequent civilian authority in accordance with the overall, wanted political endstate); and State has been given coordinate authority over phase IV so that the military in principle only has a supportive function - the chief of State's Office for the Coordinator of Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) is in charge of coordinating this particular element in the inter-agency process (not really sure how it/he formally ties in with the NSC which is in charge of the overall process).

Pre-conflict on the other hand is about identifying and addressing - ultimately managing - emerging conflicts so that they do not evolve into something we cannot live with for humanitarian or security reasons, or both. If we put on the USG glasses then, in principle, this challenge calls for both civilian and security (military and covert) means, because the challenge in itself has a political and anthropological character - it cannot be purely military. Much of the existing framework of international organizations and here especially the UN deals with pre-conflict. Development policy itself is a central piece in this puzzle. Conceiving of development policy as a means in to a pre-conflict management end is controversial but helpful.

Pre-conflict there has not recieved the same institutional attention as post-conflict. Only the JFCOM is developing a new Joint Operating Concept for 'Shaping' operations. The CINC at AFRICOM will be likely to get the responsibility for contingency planning like the other CINCs have. A number of these will be proper war plans. The majority will likely deal with evacuation, humanitarian assistance and especially FID, COIN and counterterrorism - foreign internal defense operations and (support to) counterinsurgency. But the most consequential work, if the AFRICOM commander gets it right, will be based on the conceptual work being done on pre-conflict issues.

There is an institutional trap here: the military traditionally is very strong in war planning. In its self-understanding the military exists to carry out major missions. These are represented in war and contingency plans. But the pre-conflict logic is more civilian, oriented towards day-to-day process of political subjects (but it is at the same time more general, strategic than a war plan case). The challenge for both JFCOM and AFRICOM will be to enhance the pre-conflict stuff to the same institutional importance as those threats that can be addressed through war planning.

The military develops and produces contingency planning and joint concepts at COCOM and JFCOM levels. No such equivalent exists within the civilian apparatus. The US military has some unique institutional strengths in planning and concept development, both in terms of talent and numbers, and in terms of formalization of process. The civilian side could learn a lot from these guys.

But there is an institutional imbalance here. Neither State Department or the NSC have ressources for strategic planning comparable to Pentagon's. Pentagon is 'only' responsible for developing plans and JOCs in support of the overall USG inter-agency process on pre- and post-conflict where the civilian agencies are in the lead. One solution is of course for e.g. the AFRICOM commander to involve or integrate civilian agencies very much up front in strategic planning and forecasting. But even if this is an understandable and pragmatic approach there is something lopsided about a process that will then hinge the institutitional setup of carrying out US foreign policy (State's domain) on the individual character of e.g. the AFRICOM commander. In the end, pre-conflict management can then be boiled down to whether the given commander 'gets' the political and anthropological stuff.

That seems like an unnecessarily contingent element. Maybe State Department or the NSC should get into the conceptual development and planning work on their own account so that they get a better - more strictly institutionalized - chance of getting heard? That might also ensure, that the military winds up with less situations where they are formally in a supportive function while really having to do it all.


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* For the non-US reader: the 'inter-agency process' is the term describing the policy coordination going on inside US Government (USG). The National Security Council is the agency responsible for the process concerning national security matters.

Tic Tacs #4

Another round of Tic Tacs - a pick of interesting links:

• Tom Barnett on "The price of locking in China..."
• Kilcullen's deadpan picking apart of Luttwak (great big hat tip to MountainRunner)
• Arms and Influence on the "Hidden costs of the surge"
• World Bank's Private Sector Development Blog on the "Cost of Gender Inequality "
• And, finally, a lengthy rebuttal to this Economist piece on the OECD SG ... written by himself, here.

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.

The Coming JFCOM 'Shaping' JOC: A Revolution In Development Policy?

The creation of African Command (AFRICOM) is accompanied by a the development of a new Joint Operating Concept (JOC) with potentially huge ramifications for the continent and for the whole development sector -- including the largest non-American partners, from the national development agencies (DfID, Danida, etc) over the EU and especially the UN to of course the 'host nations' in particularly Africa.

This new JOC is called Shaping. It is the logical prequel to the SSTR JOC -- published in its final version in December 06 after several years of preparation. The SSTR JOC deals with Stabilization, Security, Transition and Reconstruction Operations and is the new version of the old S&R. The inclusion of especially transitioning points to the growing understanding within the Pentagon system of the importance of founding the conceptual thinking about use of force on a properly clausewitzian basis: namely that military operations must always be thought of as an element in a larger political concept (not to say that MCOs do not have to function in a more clearcut independent way). The philosophical critique has been expressed particularly well by Antulio J. Echevarria, e.g. in this paper Toward An American Way of War. The SSTR JOC basically underpins all MOOTWs including counterinsurgency.

SSTR Ops are those contained inside what is known as Phase IV: what comes after Phase III or MCO (Major Combat Operations). As I wrote in a report on Transitioning (in Danish), back in summer '05, this distinction between the phases is breaking down: the subsequent publication of the DoD Directive 3000.05 which puts SSTR on par with MCO within the US military; the NSPD 44, which gives States responsibility for Phase IV; and the extensive work going on in all sectors of USG to improve inter-agency cooperation, planning and training (without much to show for it so far) shows how the breakdown is real but also causing a lot of headaches.

Where SSTR equals Phase IV, the Shaping JOC is then tasked with dealing with Phase 0. Phase 0 is about prevention of conflict, and should in this perspective be understood as an element in the Long War ... or the GWOT (global war on terrorism) as it apparently and weirdly still is called in Pentagon circles. This PPT file shows not only the timeline for the new Shaping JOC (version 1.0 is due in August '07) but also the basic aspirations of the JOC:

Military Problem: In the complex future environment, economic, demographic and societal stressors will lead to areas of instability. Future state and non-state adversaries, to include extremist ideologues, will use all means available to:

• exploit this instability by undermining partnerships and further destabilizing weak governments,
• deny or disrupt US influence or access, and
• gain sanctuary in ungoverned, unstable, and remote areas

The future Joint Force Commander must be capable of working both unilaterally and closely with multinational, interagency and other partners to maintain or enhance stability, prevent or mitigate crises and set the conditions for access and responsive crisis intervention.

Scope: This JOC will focus on the actions a joint force commander might take in the context of unified action to advance US interests by:

• building partnership capacity
• influencing non-partners and potential adversaries
• mitigating the underlying causes of conflict and extremism; and
• setting the conditions that enable rapid action when military intervention is required

Proposed Solution: The Joint Force, as a part of a larger multinational and interagency effort, conducts continuous, anticipatory shaping operations that build partnerships with governmental, nongovernmental, regional and international organizations and reduce the drivers of conflict and instability in order to prevent or mitigate conflict or other crises and set the conditions for success in other operations—all aimed at a secure global environment favorable to US interests.

How do you '[mitigate] the underlying causes of conflict and extremism', and 'mitigate conflict and other crises'? Well, this is exactly the work of the aggregate development organisations: from the UKs PCRU and USAID plus international NGOs like the ICG to more long-term development organisations like UNDP. Mitigating underlying causes of conflict means addressing grievances before they turn into rebellion ... it means strengthening the local state so that it delivers to its citizens: from basic infrastructure, a working, stable and sustainable economy that provides jobs, rule of law and a decent political system.

The Pentagon will have their hands full -- and it is extremely important that they get the conceptual thinking right here. I hope the drafters will consult leading civilian development and political science experts and the extensive social science insights inside the CIA.

As a consequence of the NSPD 44, both the SSTR and the Shaping JOC are entitled "Military Support to..." but the Shaping PPT nevertheless underlines the probably necessity for the military to be able to deal unilaterally with the issue, i.e. have the capabilities to carry out these things without the interagency process. This is true also for SSTR: in many situations the military is the only organization present, as is visible in e.g. Afghanistan.

What are the ramifications? On the Pentagon side, the answer depends not only on the thinking to be done, but also on the implementation. The interesting thing here is that AFRICOM will offer the Shaping JOC a natural home (EUCOM shares the lead on the JOC development with JFCOM: will probably be transferred to AFRICOM?) -- it will not have to battle (a losing) struggle to get influence within the other COCOMs. Its reception within SOCOM is, however, very important. As Tom Barnett has noted, the existing CJTF-HOA will probably form the basis for AFRICOM even if it is placed in Stuttgart to begin with. Stuttgart is also the home of a SOCOM force (10th Special Forces Group, 1st Battalion). This may be a coincidence but it is probably not: The Long War's shaping missions will not solely be about development-like issues but will also include sharp-end elements, which is where the special forces come in handy as they excell in these more surgical operations. AFRICOM's tasks may be very political in nature but they will include very military means.

On the civilian side, including the whole of the development universe: You better wake up and follow this development closely. The Pentagon has so much logistical and funding clout that if the Shaping concept does indeed get feet, then there will be some very real opportunities to move the development agenda forward. My guess is, however, that most likely the development crowd will shy away from cooperation with the Pentagon. This is especially the case for the European development agencies.

Finally, there is NATO: This is stuff which should interest the CIMIC Centre of Excellence, but also people at higher echelons: anyone in the NATO militaries dealing with strategic planning.

This is a thing to be followed closely!

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EDIT: This old post gets a lot of readers. Please do not miss the later posts on Shaping, either by clicking here (and show all posts on shaping); or by going to these two posts, which further follow and evaluate Shaping/CSE:

• JFCOM: Shaping Ambition (Sort of) Implodes
• JFCOM: Shaping Ambition (Sort of) Implodes II

African Command Comes To Life

African Command will be a reality: DEFSEC Gates' statements at today's Senate hearing revealed as much (even if his prepared statement stuck to mostly explaining the rationale behind the Defense budget, here, pdf).

The essential characteristic of the new African Command is the essentially political caretaker role that it is designated to have -- as opposed to a combat oriented command:

"The president has decided to stand up a new unified combatant command, Africa Command, to oversee security, cooperation, building partnership capability, defense support to nonmilitary missions, and, if directed, military operations on the African continent," Gates said. This command will enable us to have a more effective and integrated approach than the current arrangement of dividing Africa between Central Command and European Command, an outdated arrangement left over from the Cold War."

Can't wait to see the new Joint Forces Command Shaping concept: this is what AfriCom will do.

Other, longer posts on African Command can be found here.

Next UNSG: Ghani Out, Ban In; India Wins Most

Ban emerges as the next UNSG it is clear from last night's straw poll at the UN in New York. Ghani pulled four 'encourage' and no less than 11 'discourage' votes (including three vetos), making him the sole candidate without a 'no opinion' vote. Ghani's candidature, it appears, suffered from entering the race at a late date, little time before the US called for the process to be sped up. The campaign nevertheless had quite impressive press coverage in the run up to the rushed straw poll. This includes a piece by Op-Ed contributor Bret Stephens in today's WSJ (hopefully I'll get the full version later today: email with a copy is welcome!), with this intro:

Few people are better qualified to run the United Nations than Ashraf Ghani. So it goes without saying that the former Afghan finance minister and current chancellor of Kabul University stands almost no chance of getting the job. Instead, Kofi Annan's successor as secretary-general is likely to be South Korea's colorless foreign minister Ban Ki-Moon, who has the backing of the Bush administration and continues to run well ahead of other candidates in several Security Council straw polls. An Asian peer of Mr. Ban recently quipped that he'll be "more secretary than general"; his one recommendation is that he's probably ...

Other coverage included a live appearance last night on BBC World's unforgiving but high standard interview show "Hard Talk", and this agenda presenting interview with the AP. The interview demonstrates Ghani's insight into the challenges lying ahead for the UN, especially the necessity of focusing on the reform process in order to safeguard and ameliorate the organization's operational effectiveness and general standing. Today's quote is from the WSJ whose Op-Ed page asked the candidates "to two questions. First, we asked them to discuss an avoidable mistake the United Nations had made within the last five years. Second, we asked them what major reform they would undertake as secretary general. Five candidates gave us their answers." This is Ghani's answer:

IN his March report on reform, Secretary General Kofi Annan said that the United Nations ''lacks the capacity, controls, flexibility, robustness and indeed transparency to handle multibillion-dollar global operations.'' Describing the organizational culture as ''damaged,'' he acknowledges that a recent audit points ''to both mismanagement and possible fraud'' in peacekeeping operations. He concludes that reform efforts have addressed the ''symptoms and not the causes of our underlying weaknesses.''

These internal problems have undermined the moral authority and effectiveness of the United Nations, which ought to be the trusted global forum for reaching consensus and taking action on vital challenges. This loss is most directly felt in the poorest countries of the world. Yet distrust among member nations has slowed the momentum of reform.

The United Nations should foster global stability by investing in effective states and legitimate institutions. But doing so requires us to renew an organization designed for a different era. Through consultation with member states, I will seek an agreement on the key tasks that the United Nations must perform. I will lead a process of reform that will allow the United Nations to set the gold standard for transparency and accountability, and which will inspire talented women and men from around the world to work at the United Nations. Only by establishing trust in the organization can we make the United Nations the instrument of global choice for addressing the problems of our time.

The P5 have decided to choose a candidate who will leave the reform process to underlings. Perhaps this is an expression of a hope that a weak or at least loose management UNSG makes for an easier outside imprint on UN reform. If so, that would be a perverted logic: without strong internal leadership, UN reform risks being voted and analysed, but not implemented whole-heartedly. Furthermore, even if Ban still has the chance to transform his bland aura in practice, the choice of a bureaucrat for UNSG may seem a safe bet to some governments. But they may come to dearly regret this if Ban shows himself unable to be more than the "world's top diplomate", namely someone who can redefine the given crisis agenda through intellect and charisma.

It will be interesting to follow the after-math stories to the selection of Ban -- especially which P5 members vetoed who and for which reasons, including Mr. Ghani.

The major winner, however, seems to be India. India's support for the Tharoor candidature looks like a smart ploy. By backing him in spite of breaking the 'no large country UNSG rule', the Indian government created a defeat for India, which adds to the argument that India should get a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

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.