In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

88 twenty-one Clear, Hold, and Build Every other Thursday I’d have breakfast with Chris Alexander, UN representative Kai Eide’s deputy, and Admiral Matthieu Borsboom, head of the ISAF mission reconstruction project. Each time we’d get together with a group of experts who differed depending on their fields of expertise, with the intention of getting civilians and military to work together. At every meeting we repeated the phrase “There can be no development without security and no security without development” with the precise therapeutic function of reconciling what was irreconcilable. Everyone said it over and over again, both the civilians and the military, but depending on whether it was said by the former or the latter, the emphasis was placed on the first or second part of the slogan. In all honesty this seemingly obvious concept concealed two contrasting ways of seeing things, of alleviating the conflict and choosing priority areas for reconstruction. More generally, they were two visions of the world, at least the world of postwar crisis management. “If the safety of a district is not ensured first, we can’t send our experts in to risk their lives,” was the position of the United Nations, influenced by the “humanitarian lobby.” “But if you don’t bring aid, electricity, and water immediately, if you don’t build roads and hospitals immediately, in the place just cleared of insurgents, it will never be safe, and will eventually fall back into the hands of the insurgents,” responded the military. I’ve simplified things a little to try to make them easier to understand , but at the root of many coordination problems between the civilian and military worlds in Afghanistan lie these two perspectives of how to do things in the right order. And I challenge anyone to draw a 21-2423-0 ch21.indd 88 6/3/13 1:54 PM Clear, Hold, and Build 89 clear line, to say who is truly right, because it’s obvious that in a sense each is right. It’s easy to say that military and reconstruction activities should proceed hand in hand, in what we could call an integrated manner. Nevertheless , translating this principle into something tangible requires people on both sides who will understand the reasoning of the other side: soldiers who know how to work with civilian workers and vice versa. People like this are an extremely rare commodity in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, many of the military have never worked with civilians and, deep down, are impatient with them, while too many civilians will not even remotely consider working with the military, for “ideological” reasons. In the end it was difficult to reconcile the United Nations, the Afghans, and the ISAF military mission on which areas and districts the reconstruction effort should be concentrated: those in the north or the west that were already safe, which were in danger of being destabilized soon by the insurgents if there wasn’t some immediate investment, or those yet to be secured in the south or east of the country, which would never become safe unless essential services were taken to the population. isaf military operations were all based on the sequence “clear, hold, and build.” “Clear” means to separate the civilian population from the insurgents; “hold” means to install police and institutions of good governance to oversee the area; “build” means to get donors there so that they can immediately start rebuilding. In fact, areas had been cleared of insurgents many times, but no Afghan police had arrived to oversee, or international donors to restore essential services to, the people. The result was a quick relapse into the sphere of insurgent influence, with accusations on the international front flying back and forth between the military and the civilians—the former blaming the latter for being unreliable and failing to back them up, with the latter accusing the former of acting unilaterally, without first coordinating with others. As if that weren’t enough, the military tended to think that the impasse authorized them to do everything themselves, tackling governance and reconstruction in place of the Afghans and the rest of the international community. And, in my opinion, there’s nothing worse than someone trying to stand in for others and do their jobs for them. 21-2423-0 ch21.indd 89 6/3/13 1:54 PM ...

Share