Where are we headed with this?
Bullets are not going to win this war, right? We need to think outside the box, adopting a ‘comprehensive approach’, and a ‘whole of government’ strategy to stabilisation. Commanders, therefore, need to view money “as a weapons system.” So, how does that work, exactly? How do we help countries like Afghanistan to become prosperous enough to be stable?
David Kilcullen has come up with a new term (he would, wouldn’t he?): ‘opposed development’. How do you do development assistance in the presence of armed conflict? At a recent USIP panel discussion, several observers tackled the idea, looking at the chestnut of the relationship between aid/development/reconstruction and stabilisation/security.
It appears, from most of the people involved in the panel discussion, that this issue is far more complicated that it first appears.
Here are some (cherry-picked) snippets from that conversation:
Andrew Natsios, Former Administrator of USAID, offers that there is a fundamental problem with the entire notion of the ‘comprehensive approach': “The 3Ds [defence, diplomacy, development] are not going to be integrated without compromising…the integrity of what the 3Ds are.”
As an example, expecting one D to solve the problems of another D, may be a nice idea, but not possible in reality. What we are expecting and measuring, when we harness aid to COIN or stabilisation, “Too many metrics…are completely counter-developmental in theory and practice.”
Still, even if it ain’t good development, says Andrew Wilder, Research Director, Feinstein International Center, Tufts University, “If it is effective…a strong case can be made for securitizing…a significant percentage of your aid.” Okay, sounds good. But there is a problem: “Our research is pointing…that there is not a lot of evidence–very little evidence–of significant stabilisation and security benefits from the vast majority of development aid that has been spent in Afghanistan.” At best, he says, the research indicates that there can be some localised, tactical benefit, but it is transactional, rather than long-lasting. Essentially, you are “renting some temporary access, not winning hearts and minds.” Due to the large amount of money involved, and the level of corruption endemic in Afghanistan, the efforts may be de-stabilising, actually serving to exacerbate tribal, ethnic, political differences. In some instances, aid is extending the reach, not of governance, but rather predation and “creating vested interests to create insecurity.”
Well, this is all very nice. But perhaps the most shocking thing of all comes from David Kilcullen, about an hour and twenty-three minutes in. I was literally gob-smacked when I heard him say:
“Development in a COIN setting has a valuable role, but it isn’t ‘winning hearts and minds’. In fact, the whole concept of ‘winning hearts and minds’ has been very thoroughly discredited in the counter-insurgency community in the last twenty years.”
Wow. I must re-read everything I ever read of Kilcullen’s. I am experiencing a little cognitive dissonance, I must admit. 20 years?!?
So, then, what is it good for? (development, not war. Frankie already answered that one, silly.) Kilcullen says two things:
1. Capacity building. Hopefully long-term development programming will create some interlocutors who can ‘take back’ their country, and provide an exit strategy to the internationals; and
2. Consent generation. But isn’t that the same as ‘hearts and minds’? No, because the hope is that by engaging in development activities in Afghanistan you can generate legitimacy “primarily in the eyes of the contributing countries putting people in.”
Again, wow. Nobody ever seems so smart as when they say something with which you agree.
PS: This, of course, is not new–something that most panel members freely admitted. The person that I recommend reading if you want to see how the strands of security and development come together is Mark Duffield. His two books, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security (2001) and Development, Security and Unending War (2007) are marvellous explorations of what labels as the ‘strategic complexes’ that have developed across these communities.
