The wait and the flight gave me time to consider all I'd heard from the many fine professionals working to stabilize southern Afghanistan. People mostly believed in their work and that they were making a difference at the local level. But nobody has a good answer when we ask about the corrupt power brokers like Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK), Abdul Rahman Jan (ARJ), Gul Agha Sherzai, and Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, not to mention President Karzai himself.
These men wield immense power in Afghanistan, controlling large economic enterprises, political patronage organizations, private militia, local security forces, narcotics trade, and official government posts. They are often protected by Karzai himself, due to their relationships or their danger to the Afghan President (or both). They live in huge garish mansions and own dozens of firms that scoop up American aid contracts while also (allegedly) fueling corruption, intimidation, and narcotics trafficing. They are feared and despised by much of the population, sapping the legitimacy of both GiROA (for whom they work) and ISAF (who showers them with money). Some of them may have ties to the Taliban and collaborate when it suits their interests.
Afghanistan's so called leaders seem to value greed and short term power over the long term peace and prosperity for the Afghan people. So what can be done? This is where tough political work is necessary. My experience is in the Balkans where the generation of post-Dayton leaders were just as unsavory as those in Afghanistan. What we did was to offer a very clear vision of post-Dayton integration into Europe and backed it with political, economic, and military leverage on each group. Leaders in the Balkans had a choice: 1) get with the program and become a post-war leader of their nation, 2) obstruct and find political isolation (at best) or be detained for war crimes (at worst). Biljana Plavsic is one example. An extreme Serb Nationalist and war criminal, Plavsic responded in a pragmatic way to this choice (and the more moderate political mood in her political base of Banja Luka), helping to pass some key measures to strengthen the new Bosnian government.
Leverage in Afghanistan appears harder to come by, but perhaps we're just not —to use what we have. Money is an obvious one. We currently throw assistance money at parts of Afghanistan that need help. And we're giving the money to contractors owned/controlled by the power brokers in these areas that are generally not helping. Maybe we want to spend money in areas and on companies controlled by leaders that are helping. Cancel some contracts tied to a guy that is being obstructionist. Let's see if that changes the behavior in Afghanistan.
We need to balance some of the structural and community based objectives with this political approach but that is doable — having political leadership that knows we will use leverage is worth that sacrifice. We also need to better leverage political relationships. It starts with establishing leverage on Karzai who can then put pressure on provincial level officials. For both Karzai and others, we can leverage our influence with neighboring states, global business interests, and global media. Finally, we have all the tools and influence of our military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan. There have to be ways we can better leverage our hard power advantage.
This is not to imply that we should try to remove these guys. Much better to co-opt or push these guys into being constructive than to challenge their survival. But we need to be —to do that if they are an enemy of the peace. Being part of the solution offers its own advantages: political recognition, access to US and international officials, direct and indirect financial rewards, and most important, the chance to be remembered in Afghan history as a leader not a criminal. Until Afghanistan gets more leaders and fewer criminals, our mission there is difficult.
SWJ Editors' Note: Nick Dowling is a small wars policy wonk with experience in OSD, the NSC Staff, NDU, and the contracting sector. He has worked on stability operations for 16 years, most prominently on Bosnia and Kosovo as a Clinton Administration appointee and Iraq and Afghanistan as a DoD contractor. He is currently President of IDS International, a leader in interagency and "soft power" types of support to the US military. He is a graduate of Harvard, got his masters at Georgetown, and is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.