South Asia

Tensions between the United States of America and Russia over the deployment of a ballistic missile defence system by the US in eastern Europe are sharpening. Japan is deploying such a system to ward off the North Korean missile threat. With fears of increasing missile proliferation, BMD deployments could take place also in the Gulf region. What stock-taking can one do of the situation in South Asia?

India’s strategic neighbourhood is extremely difficult, with two large neighbours, China and Pakistan, possessing nuclear weapons and a panoply of missiles and collaborating with each other to contain India. No other country faces such a powerful combination of adversarial direct neighbours.

India is therefore compelled to develop technologies and capacities to protect itself. But it faces considerable technological and financial constraints. Its formidable challenge is to develop capacities that are autonomous but also available in reasonable time frames.

India’s political system and domestic economic and social challenges dispose it towards moderation. It seeks to develop the base of high technologies in the country, but without excessive investment of resources and determined acceleration of programmes.

India’s missile development programme began in 1986 and it is only this year that it has successfully launched its 5,000-kilometre range Agni V missile. Its earlier development of Prithvi and Agni III missiles gave it the means to develop a BMD programme, which began in 1999.

India’s BMD programme has a two-tiered system, with the Prithvi air defence for high altitude exo-atmospheric (50 to 80 kms) and advanced air defence for low altitude endo-atmospheric (15 to 30 kms) interception. Future plans include two new anti-ballistic missiles, AD-1 and AD-2, for intercepting intercontinental ballistic missiles at a range of around 5,000 kms.

India has carried out seven BMD tests in all, six of them successful, of which two used the PAD exo-atmospheric interceptor and four the endo-atmospheric one. The first was on March 6, 2006, the seventh on February 10, 2012.

India’s BMD system is being developed in two phases: in the first phase against missiles with less than 2,000 km range, like Pakistan’s Ghauri and Shaheen missiles, with 600 km-range radars and missiles at the speed of Mach 4-5 and expected deployment by 2013.

It will be a two-tiered terminal phase interceptor system consisting of a PAD exo-atmospheric interceptor missile, an AAD endo-atmospheric interceptor and the “Swordfish” long range tracking radar developed jointly with Israel. Under phase one, the national capital region will be covered and later other cities will be protected.

The current PAD missile is intended to be replaced by a PDV missile in the PAD/AAD combination by eliminating the liquid-fuel first stage and creating a two solid-fuel stage missile capable of interception at altitudes of upto 150 kms.

Phase two will cater for missiles with a range greater than 2,000 kms, will reach Mach 6-7 speed and have the capability to manoeuvre and deploy decoys. It will require long range radars with a detection range of 1,600 kms with greater indigenous content. Several technologies, such as a space based launch detection system, have to be integrated to make this possible, and all this will take several more years to develop.

A satellite kill vehicle, using Agni III, is reportedly being developed but no test has been scheduled so far, as delicate political considerations are involved. China’s ASAT test in 2007 has spurred Indian concerns because our growing space assets need protection.

While the achievements of India’s Defence Research and Development Organisation are impressive, claims that we can deploy an effective BMD system against intermediate range ballistic missiles and ICBMs in the next few years invite some scepticism. Of course, India is not planning a full spectrum BMD system because of technological and financial limitations. Even the US, after spending billions, does not possess such a system and is looking for financial burden-sharing now even for developing and deploying the Standard Missile 3 that can intercept an incoming missile mid-course. The Indian effort is concentrated on the terminal phase which gives limited geographical coverage as compared to mid-course interception.

However, in terms of actual effectiveness in battlefield conditions, like other systems, the Indian system will have to contend with the enemy overwhelming the shield with a large number of warheads or mirved missiles. The Chinese have this capability.

Just as the Russians are developing new missile and reworking systems to defeat the proposed US BMD shield, the Chinese and the Pakistanis will react similarly to India’s BMD system. Chinese experts claim China has never taken India as a strategic rival and that none of its weapons were designed to contain India. Similarly India says that its longer range Agni missiles are intended to deter China and not Pakistan, but this does not deter Pakistan from developing its missile capacities further to counter India. Regional diplomatic initiatives to address these problems are very difficult to work out.

The US BMD deployments are triggering Chinese responses with an impact on our region. China wants to deter the US, India wants to deter China and Pakistan, Pakistan wants to deter India. China will not limit its capabilities to assuage India’s concerns so long as it perceives a threat from the US. India will continue to develop credible deterrent capabilities against China so long as the China threat exists and expands, and will not be able to respond to Pakistan’s calls for a mutual strategic restraint regime that leaves China out.

Significantly, all those countries deploying terminal defence systems are integrated into the US surveillance and tracking capabilities. India and the US have signed a 10-year defence framework agreement that provides for expanding collaboration relating to missile defence. In January 2012, a senior Pentagon official stated that the US was open to collaborating with India on the missile defence shield project and would restart the dialogue with India on the subject.

For many years India and the US have been talking about missile defence issues, without tangible progress so far. India wants to retain its autonomy in this area.

In sum, India is making progress in developing a BMD system even if its effectiveness in battlefield conditions remains open to question. India has little choice in this regard as it cannot allow the strategic gap between it and China to grow irretrievably. It must remain abreast of vital strategic technologies. India has to consider developing ASAT technologies before any international regime is reached that excludes India like the non-proliferation treaty.

India is not a member of any alliance and must rely on itself for its defence. This makes it necessary for it to develop its strategic capacities sufficiently and independently. The conditions for a separate Indian subcontinental deal on such issues do not exist as China would not want to be constrained in its choices vis-a-vis the US by the India factor, apart from its unwillingness to deal with India on the basis of equality in nuclear matters, and India will not want to be constrained in its choices vis-a-vis China by the Pakistan factor.

This is a circular problem and squaring this circle will be exceedingly difficult indeed.

The working group is drawn from U.S.- and Russia-based experts who are producing a joint threat assessment (JTA) on the wide range of challenges posed to both states by narcotrafficking from Afghanistan. The JTA will be followed by a Joint Policy Assessment suggesting cooperative measures that the United States and Russia can undertake to tackle the dangers posed by Afghan narcotrafficking.  This working group is addressing a key security concern to both the United States and Russia and thus aims to aid in the “reset” of U.S.-Russia relations by delivering positive momentum, confidence-building, and policy impact. As the U.S.-Russia relationship faces increased strains and tensions from difficult and increasingly divisive issues like ballistic missile defense and Syria, the need to promote dialogue where there are common interests intensifies.

The working group members met in June at EWI’s Brussels office for three days of discussions. Initial sessions were held with senior officials from the European Union, NATO, and the Russian Mission to NATO on actions, interests, and challenges in Afghanistan. The experts then devoted two days to assessing the key threats that both Russia and the United States face and possible scenarios for these threats after 2014. The discussions touched on economic development, insurgency and criminal groups in trafficking, state capacity, the Afghan national forces, corruption, border management, the role of eradication in counternarcotics strategy, and the function of international organizations in the region.

There was a widespread expectation that in the immediate aftermath of NATO’s withdrawal and a reduced U.S. troop presence, there will be an increase in the amount of poppy produced and the role of opium—already significant—in Afghanistan’s economy. Both the willingness and ability of the Afghan national forces to take on a significant counternarcotics role was also discussed.

Although the supply side of counternarcotics strategy dominated the conversations, the experts discussed how Russia and the United States could do more work on the demand side of counternarcotics strategy, which is fertile ground for continued collaboration. How to reinforce and expand already successful cooperation, such as the already robust Drug Enforcement Agency(DEA)-Federal Drug Control Service (FSKN) ties, was also discussed.

The JTA, which should be finalized by September, will include assessments of the following areas:

• the threats that Afghan narcotrafficking poses specifically to Russia and the U.S. and the shared concerns between these two countries
• the opium economy in Afghanistan
• the transnational trade in Afghan opiates and money laundering
• effects of narcotrafficking on state-building in Afghanistan

Working group members are scheduled to convene in New York in the fall to finalize the joint policy assessment.

Members of the Joint U.S.-Russia Working Group on Afghan Narcotrafficking:

Russian Experts

Ilnur Batyrshin, Head of the Scientific Research Center of FSKN 

Viktor Korgun, Head of the Afghanistan department, Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences

Yuri Kroupnov, Director, Institute for Demography, Migration, and Regional Development; Advisor to the Director of Federal Drug Control Service of the Russian Federation (FSKN)

Aman Saliev, Senior Expert, Institute of Strategic Analysis and Planning, Kyrgyz-Russian University of the Kyrgyz Republic

Konstantin Sorokin, Project Manager, Department of Training and Methodology and Research Projects, International Training and Methodology Centre for Financial Monitoring (ITMCFM)

Ekaterina Stepanova, Head of the Peace and Conflict Studies Unit of IMEMO

Georgi Zazulin, Professor at the Chair of Conflictology, St. Petersburg University, specializing on narcoconflictology and anti-narcotics policies in Russia and Europe; Russian representative of the International Organization European Cities Against Drugs 

U.S. Experts

Andrew Kuchins, Director, Russia and Eurasia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies

George Gavrilis, Executive Director, The Hollings Center for International Dialogue

David T. Johnson, Senior Advisor, Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS); Senior Advisor, Avascent International; former Assistant Secretary of State for Narcotics and Law Enforcement

John “Jack” Lawn, former Administrator, Drug Enforcement Agency

David Mansfield, Visiting Fellow, The Feinstein International Centre, Tufts University

Kimberly Marten, Professor, Department of Political Science, Barnard College

Gretchen Peters, author, Seeds of Terror: How Drugs, Thugs and Crime Have Reshaped the Afghan War; Consultant, Researcher and Advisor of Transnational Crime Issues

Cory Welt, Associate Director, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, The George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs; Adjunct Fellow, Center for American Progress

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta's recent visit to India brings to the fore again the question of the depth India should impart to India-US defence ties. Panetta has been explicit about US interest in deepening them.

The itinerary that took him to the US Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii, Singapore, Cam Ranh Bay and Hanoi in Vietnam, New Delhi and Kabul illustrates the new US defence priorities in Asia, a counter "string of pearls" strategy of sorts that includes India.

Strategy

This new defence strategy, Panetta acknowledged, consists of "rebalancing" towards the Asia-Pacific region, with an expansion of US military partnerships and presence in the arc extending from the Western Pacific and East Asia into the Indian Ocean region and South Asia. The US will shift the bulk of its naval fleet including as many as six aircraft carriers to the Pacific Ocean by 2020.

Panetta said candidly in Delhi that defence cooperation with India is a lynchpin in this US strategy. General Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has underlined subsequently India's enormously important geostrategic location on the sea lanes of communication from the Mid-east to the Pacific. The Pentagon says it sees India as a net provider of security from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan and beyond.

In Delhi Panetta spoke publicly of India-US defence relationship becoming more strategic, practical and collaborative through regular defence policy exchanges, military exercises covering all functional areas of naval warfare, prospects for advanced R&D, sharing of new technologies and joint production of defence equipment, besides defence sales and intelligence sharing.

Noting that India will soon have the world's second largest fleet with an expanded reach and ability to rapidly deploy, Panetta visualises a peaceful Indian Ocean region supported by growing Indian capabilities with America making military deployments in the region including rotating marines in Australia and Littoral Combat Ships through Singapore.

These statements and plans make clear that the US pivot towards Asia envisages a buttressing Indian role in it. This pivot aims at re-asserting the American role in the Asia-Pacific region with a view to balancing and countering the rising power of China, as circumstances demand.

US overtures put India in a delicate and difficult situation. The US is changing its geopolitical calculus towards India. Panetta equated US difficulties in dealing with Pakistan with those India faced, disregarding Pakistani sensitivities about western leaders criticising it from Indian soil. He welcomed a more active political and economic Indian role in Afghanistan, including training of the Afghan security forces.

India cannot easily spurn defence advances by the world's foremost military power in a changing global context. India has its own concerns about China's adversarial policies. It cannot unreservedly grasp the US hand either, as it is independently engaging China and has convergence of interests with it on issues of global governance where India has differences with the West.

We have to factor in our response our relations with Russia, our principal defence partner, the growing strategic understanding between Russia and China, and our dialogue with both countries in the Russia-India-China (RIC) format and that of BRICS. Any perception that just as Russia is moving closer to China because of US/NATO pressure we are moving closer to the US would be politically undesirable.

This calls for a very sophisticated handling of the strategic advantage of strengthening defence ties with the US and the strategic disadvantage of being dragooned into US interventionist policies across the globe. The challenge is how to separate Indian interests from those of the US while deepening the strategic partnership between the two countries.

China

Understanding the dynamics of the USChina relationship is extremely important. This relationship is multi-dimensional, with twin tracks of cooperation and competition. Economically and financially cooperation predominates, despite periodic US complaints about China's trade and exchange rate policies; politically and strategically competition is dominant, even if elements in the US, recognising the inevitability of China's rise, talk of joint US-China management of global affairs.

US-China economic interdependence may raise doubts among US allies about the constraints this imposes on US political choices in dealing with China-provoked regional tensions, but the allies also gain freedom to expand economic ties with China as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan have done. All sides thus see shared gains in expanding trade exchanges.

Response

On the political and strategic front, the situation is more complex. The US has an established military presence in the region, with several alliance relationships. The US may tolerate losing economic power to China in relative terms as part of win-win arrangements, but not political power as there are no win-win arrangements there and no shared gains for US allies in security terms.

The US pivot towards Asia seems therefore a defensive move, to prevent China from materially changing the political and strategic status quo in the region in its favour in the way the economic one has shifted to China's advantage.

Panetta noted in Delhi that as the US and India deepen their defence partnership, both will also seek to strengthen their relations with China. He welcomed the rise of a strong and prosperous China that "respects and enforces the international norms that have governed this region for six decades"- a phrase encapsulating the core aim of the Asia pivot.

The US-India-China trilateral dialogue proposed by the US State Department is a subtle way to attenuate Indian concerns about the US incorporating India into its check-China strategy more than it would want. It would, by balancing the RIC dialogue, dilute its unique importance.

A pragmatic Indian response to US defence overtures is required- cautious and measured, but not negative.

Trying to muddle way out of another unpopular war and loath to concede defeat, US and NATO have been racing against time to build an Afghan army able to fend for itself after 130,000 US and ISAF troops pull out in 2014. The final transition phase, involving the handing over of responsibility for provinces and districts to Afghan authorities, will start from “mid-2013,” Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. A number of areas and towns have already been handed over since the transition started a year ago. Incidents of Afghan soldiers turning on Nato troops cause apprehension of increased Taliban infiltration of the Afghan police and army.

Nato initially planned to expand Afghan Security Forces to over 350,000. Defining the 2014 exit strategy the Chicago summit set the size and scope after 2014 to be much smaller, roughly 230,000 troops. Without scaling down the future security needs, it simply reflected prevailing economic realities in an era of austerity budgets and defence cutbacks. The US and Nato require $4.1 billion a year to maintain the Afghan military, far less than the cost of maintaining foreign forces in Afghanistan and also, and more importantly, easier for the economically suffering and war-weary US and European publics to sustain.

In keeping with his campaign pledge, incoming French president Francois Hollande said France will withdraw its own forces by the end of 2012. Along with Britain, Germany and Italy, France is among the top five troop-contributing nations with about 3,600 soldiers, dwarfed by the 90,000-strong US force. The 9,500 British forces in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001 will be reduced by 500 soldiers this year. Two hundred members of Britain’s Special Forces will stay on after 2014 to help combat terrorism in Afghanistan.

As Afghanistan’s largest patron, the US is supposed to share about 25 percent of the cost after 2014 in support of the present Afghan regime for at least a decade (or more), but could well conceivably bear more than half the cost. The recent Obama-Karzai strategic partnership covers everything from security to economic development, to building a functional Afghan government. US special operations forces will have to stay to “mentor the Afghan National Security Force,” says Marine Corps Maj Gen John Toolan, who commanded Nato forces in Afghanistan’s volatile southwest. US gunships and air-to-ground assault planes will continue supporting ground forces. The fledgling Afghan air force which in 2015 will still be unable to do so. The US will also continue maintaining a fleet of intelligence-gathering and surveillance aircraft, Heritage Foundation’s Lisa Curtis claims that “it spells out an important US red line to the Taliban, who have long called for expelling all foreign forces from the country.”

All said and done, will the Afghan Army fight? With a track record over centuries of deserting on masse to whosoever controls Kabul and the treasury, it did not fight for the Soviets against the Mujhahideen, nor for the US and Nato against the Taliban.

President Zardari faced studied but polite cold-shouldering in Chicago. On the one hand are the economic and geo-political considerations of far-reaching consequences for the destiny of the nation, on the other an enraged populace burning with anger against the drone strikes and the US failure to render an apology over Salala. A predator nation that has lived off the Indus Valley for centuries, Afghanistan will continue to live off Pakistan for centuries more.

Commenting on Abid Latif Sindhu’s article “Necessary Roughness – endgame in Afghanistan,” Brig Usman Khalid concludes: (1) The endgame will effect the world balance of power because Pakistan has a crucial role to play. It borders China, is a gateway to Central Asia and is situated on the Western part of the Arabian Sea. This part controls a chokepoint – the Strait of Hormuz, which joins the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf-and not too far to the south is the Gulf of Aden, which leads to the Red Sea via the still narrower Bab el-Mandeb Strait; (2) Pakistan has shown “necessary roughness,” which is a prerequisite for playing its role in the new narrative that would unfold after the exit of NATO from Afghanistan in 2014. Brig Usman Khalid further notes: “It is in Pakistan’s interest to facilitate the withdrawal of Nato forces by the end of 2014 and logistical support until then. The reopening of the supply line to Afghanistan is no longer an issue. Pakistan does not and cannot support the overall design of the US which is now being made in consultation with India. Pakistan-US relations will move along a rough and bumpy road. If Pakistan maintains its strategic cooperation with Saudi Arabia and its warm relations with China, the cost of travelling this bumpy road would be bearable and diplomatic isolation avoided.” The Nato supply line through Pakistan needs resolution but will have emotional ramifications among a populace no longer patient with putting issues on the backburner.

The presence of American “experts” after 2014 with US bases operational at Bagram, Kandahar and Kabul has made the endgame more complex. According to Sindhu, “Pakistan has just shown necessary roughness while dealing with the USA in retaliation for its bashing; it was never an act of defiance. It is precisely what is required in any relationship, may it be one between husband and wife or Hillary’s favourite mother-in-law analogy. So it should be taken in the right context. Pakistan is not a rentier state; the state policy could be lopsided but it does exist. It is both a victim and the player of the new great game with a status of the regional middle kingdom. Afghanistan endgame is being played by increasing the numbers of players in its final hour; this has made the phenomenon global in nature and multidimensional in its texture.”

Sindhu asks whether Pakistan can be ignored with its unique connectivity matrix when Pakistan is fighting an extended insurgency in all of the tribal areas? In essence, he says, “globalism has come face to face with tribalism, one using technology as the main driver and later using the simplicity as the sine qua non for its existence and survival. International conferences, moots and summits without reality checks would be a futile exercise perpetuating the Afghan ordeal. Pakistan, Afghanistan and the USA have to reach an operational consensus respecting each other’s sensitivities.” Sindhu left out an inconvenient truth which the West well knows, the best bet against future conflict is not going to be the well-funded ceremonials of the Afghan army but the motivated, battle-hardened disciplined soldiers of the Pakistan Army.

The Chicago Summit recognised the home truth about Pakistan’s being not only critical but central to an Afghan solution. To quote Rasmussen, “there can be no large drawdown of troops from Afghanistan without Pakistan’s help.” President Obama said: “It is in our interest to see a successful, stable Pakistan and it is in Pakistan’s interest to have stable relationship with us.” Meeting Zardari briefly, he expressed the desire to stay engaged despite differences. “The US did not want Pakistan to be consumed by its own extremism.”

Beyond Chicago, Pakistan can only hope it will not be consumed by extreme views from the West which fail to recognise the relevance of the Taliban ground reality.

Writing for Pakistan's The News International, EWI board member Ikram Sehgal, a security analyst, examines the implications of the French election on prospects for economic recovery and stability in Southwest Asia.

Click here to read this column in Pakistan's The News International.

Writing for India Today, EWI board member Kanwal Sibal, former foreign secretary of India, assesses the likely impact of Hollande's administration on the Franco-Indian relationship.

Click here to read this column in India Today.

Finishing this well-intentioned and important project, which had stalled due to a cumbersome bureaucracy, poor contracting procedures, high leadership turn-over, and a lack of proper supervision, became one of my top priorities.

When I relinquished command and left Afghanistan about a year later, the project was back on track but still incomplete, despite three years of frustrating effort. Next door to the police headquarters, meanwhile, my Australian friends and counterparts had quickly transformed a vacant lot into a gleaming, functioning school for girls – all within a single calendar year.

Though we were successful in some other important development projects, the challenges we faced in bringing this single U.S. project to fruition, and the strategies that allowed other NATO nations to move more quickly, symbolize many of the challenges faced and lessons learned by U.S. and NATO personnel in Afghanistan. These lessons also highlight how outside help, if offered and managed with an awareness of local cultural sensitivities, can help transform whole communities for the better in a much shorter period of time.

Route to Command

I reported to the International Security Assistance Force Afghanistan on June 27, 2009. As the lead planner on the newly established ISAF Joint Command (IJC) run by both Americans and Afghans, I supervised planning for the security of Afghanistan, including the role of the 30,000-soldier U.S. “surge,” and the corresponding 10,000 increase in NATO forces.

After a year, planning included how to replace the Dutch when they departed Uruzgan, a province about 100 miles north of Kandahar. The plan called for a NATO command called “Combined Team Uruzgan” (CTU) to take control of Uruzgan from the Dutch. The new team would consist primarily of U.S. and Australian forces and be commanded by a U.S. colonel—in this case me.

When I arrived in Uruzgan as the new commander, I had about a month to meet, train, and prepare my largely ad hoc Australian and U.S. staff for combat. The lessons I learned as a planner in Kabul were essential to preparing my command to conduct counterinsurgency operations. These lessons focused on building solid relationships with Afghans and coalition forces; helping the Afghans build better governance systems; completing development projects; developing the Afghan National Security Forces; and expanding security in the province. Consequently, my first battlefield circulation patrols were intended to determine the status of existing development projects in Uruzgan’s capital city of Tarin Kowt.

The need for the police station

Police in Tarin Kowt clearly needed better facilities if they were to play a major role in an Afghan-led security effort after NATO forces depart in 2014. The Combined Security Transition Command (Afghanistan) and the Afghan Ministry of Interior Affairs decided the police headquarters in Tarin Kowt was a high-priority project. They tasked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers with its construction.

The project, which included four major buildings and several outbuildings, was 70 percent done when the Afghan contractors from Kabul and Kandahar stopped paying their subcontractors and fled the area, taking with them what was left of the money they received to complete the project. Having spent the budgeted funds on the project without completing it, the Corps of Engineers struck a deal with Matiullah Khan, a local warlord. Matiullah also happened to be the commander of the local militia, the Kandak-e Amniat-e Uruzgan (KAU), and a colonel in the Afghan National Police (ANP). The idea was that he would keep the site secure indefinitely.

The previous Dutch commanders viewed the headquarters as a U.S. project and let it sit unfinished. They also chose not to deal with the local police chief, who, although corrupt, was able to secure the population by resolving conflicts and expanding police presence throughout the province in a professional manner. The lack of ownership, change-over in coalition leaders, and distrust of local officials created a situation where there was no one who felt responsible for the half-completed project. In fact, when I returned to base after my initial reconnaissance patrol and made inquires as to the status of the project, it took several weeks to find documentation on the project and determine exactly how it had come to fail.

A lot can go wrong in Afghanistan, and in the scheme of things you could argue this project was a drop in the bucket. Our frustrated attempts to get the project restarted so that it could be completed are symbolic of the seemingly dysfunctional process the United States has created, making building trust—and constructing buildings—as difficult as possible. The four-acre compound stood as a monument to the coalition’s ineptitude.

Bringing it back on line

To get the project on track, we had to find “back pay” for security services that for two years had guarded the partially built but unoccupied police headquarters. The Corps of Engineers had a dilemma: The original contract was cancelled, but all funds had been paid to the original contractor who left the area. There was no money remaining on the original contract to pay the guards. Even if there were additional construction funds available, the Corps could not pay the guards, as to do so would have violated U.S. regulations on how construction funds can be expended. The Corps tried to solve this problem by initiating a new contract, but it still could not include back pay for two years of security. It took seven months to get the exceptions and authorizations needed for the guards to receive their back pay. The final solution to pay the guards included a deal coordinated with Matiullah, the local warlord.

After two years of inactivity, the contractors were ready to finish the job, but again the Corps of Engineers stepped in and stopped any effort. In Afghanistan, the Corps is required to adhere to certain specifications on construction projects, so parts of the plan had to be redesigned. This continued for several months, with the project commencing in fits and starts.

Then there were the multiple regulations clearly designed for the United States but blindly transferred to such projects in Afghanistan. When hand rails and wheelchair ramps did not meet U.S. codes, the contractors had to stop their work. Accessibility is important, but we lost another two months reworking the plans. Afghan contractors were not prepared to meet the requirements of U.S. plumbing and electric codes either. Insisting on adherence to Western plumbing standards hardly made sense, since most Afghans did not use Western facilities and often ruined the plumbing soon after installation.

Finally, there were the myriad rules and regulations that required Afghan companies to fill out mountains of paperwork, which they simply were not prepared for. After 11 frustrating months, and intervention at the flag officer level, the project had barely restarted and was still several months from completion when I departed in June 2011.

Lessons Learned

Compare the police headquarters with the beautiful school next door, where girls were already getting an education. Without many of the road-blocks that the U.S. experienced, the Australian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team was able to build their school in under a year. The Australians tracked the progress with regular check-ins and aggressive quality assurance while coordinating their activity with AusAID (the equivalent to USAID). The U.S. experience with absconding contractors would have been detected quickly. Moreover, unlike the U.S. practice of paying contractors up front, they dispensed funds in phases throughout construction. Finally, they did not face the road-block of construction regulations built for their home country; they constructed their projects in accordance with Afghan standards.

Completing the police headquarters is important not only for the effectiveness of the police, but for gaining the respect for the local government and the Afghan national government. When NATO or the United States promises to make improvements in cooperation with the Afghan government, the people see a more effective, more trustworthy government. When we fail the government, the government fails the people. The success of counterinsurgency operations is contingent on assisting the local government in earning the trust of its people.

I worked with a remarkable multinational group of soldiers and civilians. We worked together across cultures and regulatory structures. Though it was no small task, the group divided labor, and I believe we made a real difference in securing and building infrastructure in Uruzgan by expanding security to new areas and building roads that cut regional travel time dramatically.

The U.S. Army’s obstacles are often self-inflicted. Problems with contracting and money disbursement in Iraq and other theaters are directly related to the massive bureaucracy associated with contracting today. In my opinion, we have gone too far in regulating projects, to the point where we are wasting time and money due largely to our own inefficiency. The U.S. has committed to too many projects to manage and complete effectively given the massive regulatory requirements and turnover of coalition forces. The United States should take the spirit of cooperation in the coalition one step further and learn from the efficient operations of some of our partners.

James L. Creighton served as a commissioned officer in the U.S. Army for 30 years, including as commander of Combined Team Uruzgan. He is chief of staff of the EastWest Institute in New York.

Image Credit: Australian Department of Defense

Click here to read an AAP write-up of this article in The West Australian.

The nuclear disarmament consultation, convened by EWI, The Global Security Institute and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies marked the third anniversary of Ban's speech at a similar meeting in 2008, in which he unveiled a plan for nuclear arms reduction worldwide.

The report includes a summary of the topics discussed and transcripts of remarks by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, among others.

Quoting from the synopsis:

Three years after launching his Five Point Proposal for the elimination of nuclear weapons, which included support for a nuclear weapons convention, the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, returned to the same forum on UN Day 2011 in UN headquarters in New York to observe that states have failed in their commitments. He observed: “Here we are. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons remain. New ones are being designed and built every day. And to what purpose?” He went on to say, “As Secretary-General, I want to bring disarmament down to earth. Instead of hearing the word ‘disarmament’ floating in the air, I want to see disarmament facts on the ground. This is what inspired my five point plan for action.” 

When the street rose against the entrenched regimes of Tunisia and Egypt and toppled them there was enthusiastic references to an 'Arab Spring'.

The nature of the political upsurge in these two countries was defined by western observers from their perspective as a movement in favour of democratic change by the urban middle class youth mobilised through the social media, and this description was accepted by the rest of the world without making an independent judgment.

If it was the West that had long backed the old regimes, it was they again that interpreted for the rest the character of the popular revolt against them.

Click here to read the rest of Kanwal Sibal's column at MailOnline India.

Led by Prof. Michael F. Oppenheimer, the team presented its Pakistan 2020 report, which explores three possible future scenarios for the country.

The event connected participants in the United States, Belgium, the United Kingdom, and Pakistan to weigh in on prospects for Pakistan’s future over the course of the next decade.

Oppenheimer’s colleagues included: Shamila Chaudhary, an analyst for Eurasia Group who served as the director for Pakistan and Afghanistan at the National Security Council from 2010-2011; Pakistan 2020 team lead for the CGA Scenarios Initiative Rorry Daniels; and Regina Joseph, who wrote up one of the scenarios for the report. The Carnegie Corporation-funded project was the result of NYU’s Pakistan Scenarios workshop held on April 29, 2011, which brought together 15 expert participants to develop three “plausible, distinct and consequential scenarios that merit the attention of U.S. foreign policy makers.”

Each scenario for Pakistan in 2020, though hypothetical, was designed to produce policy insights through considering potential futures.

The first hypothetical scenario, “radicalization,” envisions a Pakistan consumed by populist fervor as a result of “perceived military threats, spiraling economic losses and political infighting.” This results in the rise of a democratically elected conservative military officer who pursue a radical Islamic agenda for the country.

The second scenario, “fragmentation,” foresees economic instability as crippling the capacity of the state to govern, leading to a federally and regionally unstable Pakistan rife with insecure nuclear materials.

The third and most optimistic scenario, “reform,” sees a growing middle class fostering a centrist, economically oriented political movement. A political party born out of this movement then serves to displace much of the power currently held by political and military elites.

While the third scenario may be the least likely to occur, Oppenheimer said, “it is sufficiently plausible for the U.S. to try to work toward that scenario, in part because the other two … involve significant risks and damage to American interests and American security.”

Chaudhary argued that balkanization in Pakistan was unlikely. She maintained that Pakistan should instead be expected to “muddle through” current challenges. The first and third scenarios, both of which heavily rely upon the democratic process, would seem to support her view that Pakistan’s military, media, political parties and religious organizations are an example of “democracy at its best and at its worst.”

Najam Abbas, a senior fellow at the EastWest Institute who called in from London, commented that the situation requires a “macro-layer of analysis to probe the implications of Pakistan's 64-year-long [history of] a chaotic polity and shaky economy,” and aspects that “lead us to triggers that perpetuated strong individuals but weaker institutions.”

EWI Board Member Ikram Sehgal, speaking from Pakistan where he is chairman of a private security company, said pervasive corruption in Pakistan’s institutions was “the most important issue to the people of Pakistan” and a major cause of current instability.

German Ambassador Guenter Overfeld, EWI’s Vice President for Regional Security, calling in from Brussels, argued that corruption in Pakistan was in fact “a symptom of poor governance, not a cause.”

Pakistan 2020 is the seventh such report on potential futures for key countries conducted by the GCA Scenarios Initiative. Past reports have covered Iran, Iraq, China, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine.

Click here to read the report in full.

Click here to access the CGA Scenarios blog.