More about conditionality on foreign assistance

My friend Mauro sent me a NYT op-ed which was written by four members of the Board of Directors of the Milennium Challenge Corporation (among them Senator Bill Frist). In it, the Directors argue that the incoming administration should adopt the MCC as a central tool of its development policy. I have written before about the importance of attaching conditionality to U.S. foreign assistance; the Corporation takes a somewhat different approach - called indicator-based competition - by making countries compete for aid on the basis of their performance on a range of relevant criteria:

"Aid works best in countries whose governments are capable and committed. Before directing any American aid to a country, the corporation measures its performance on 17 indicators of democratic government, anti-corruption efforts, investments in health and education (particularly for girls) and economic freedom. Only those countries that perform strongly are allowed to compete for a five-year compact that makes them eligible to receive American aid for programs intended to reduce poverty and stimulate economic growth."

Mauro pointed out that the willingness of countries like China, Korea, Qatar, and Brazil to deliver no-strings-attached assistance (often in return for natural resources or support at the UN) has undercut the efficacy of U.S. conditionality. While the MCC has received mixed reviews in some quarters, it could represent the best way to make sure that U.S. foreign assistance benefits the people it is intended to help.

Who are the Guantánamo detainees?

The Brookings Institution has released a report which summarizes the available public-record information, mostly drawn from habeas petitions and U.S. Government statements, about the identities and affiliations of the detainees who remain imprisoned at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. As of December 16, 2008, there were 248 detainees at the base, composed mainly of (alleged or admitted) Al Qaeda and Taliban operatives, but also including Uighurs with no apparent affiliation to either group and assorted others. The report's authors provide separate assessments of the detainees (and of how the prison's demographics have shifted over time) on the basis of U.S. Government allegations and on the basis of detainee statements. Here is a quote:

"The current population numbers less than a third of the total number of detainees who have passed through the facility since 2002. And the composition of the population has changed markedly as it has declined. Yet precisely how it has changed remains fuzzy. Which detainees are still there and which have been sent home? What allegations does the military make against the residual population and how serious are they? How have the detainees responded to these allegations? Are they, as the Bush administration has described the Guantánamo population, the “worst of the worst”? Or are they composed, as the New York Times once put it, of “hundreds of innocent men . . . jailed at Guantánamo without charges or rudimentary rights”? Or do they, perhaps, vary?"

One interesting conclusion is that, while U.S. Government statements indicate a concentration over time of the most dangerous detainees (as low-level operatives have been released or transferred to their home countries), detainee statements do not support this picture. Such dynamics could have complex implications for President-elect Obama's plans to close the facility, including the potential to try remaining detainees in military or civilian courts.

Petraeus on Afghanistan and Iraq

Everyone's favorite general, David Petraeus of CENTCOM (formerly commander of U.S. forces in Iraq), has written a letter to the soldiers under his command - his first since he assumed control of CENTCOM in October - in which he outlines some of the challenges facing his area of responsibility, which includes Afghanistan and Iraq. While acknowledging progress made in both countries and referencing upcoming troop reductions in Iraq, Petraeus was cautious in his assessment and listed a number of remaining challenges. His evaluation of Afghanistan was particularly blunt:

"The Taliban and other elements that make up the extremist "syndicate," aided by groups operating from sanctuaries outside Afghanistan, have significantly increased the levels of violence in Afghanistan and contested control of important areas in the country. Slowly-developing Afghan governmental institutions have been challenged by the security situation and have yet to achieve the necessary levels of competence, integrity, capacity, and legitimacy."

The first of these two sentences is a reference to Pakistani support for the Taliban (see recent post on Thomas Barfield), while the second is an allusion to the growing consensus among U.S. and international observers (the Afghans have known it for a long time) that the Karzai government, tainted with corruption, incompetence, and links to the drug trade, has ceased to be a credible partner in the effort to rebuild the country. President-elect Obama's apparent willingness to place greater conditionality on U.S. foreign assistance, which I referenced in a previous post, could begin to shift this dynamic. The NYT is reporting that Petraeus's letter is expected to be followed by the release of a more comprehensive report, currently being researched, in February.

Looking Back: The 1978 NNPA

The Carnegie Endowment's Sharon Squassoni, writing for the Arms Control Association, has offered a look back at the 1978 Nuclear Nonproliferation Act in the context of the recent US-India nuclear deal. She makes the point that, while many of the original goals of the NNPA remain unrealized, it has provided a critical bulwark against proliferation and needs renewed engagement in the wake of the India deal, which has dealt it an unprecedented blow:

"The successes and failures of the NNPA may be more relevant than ever as the nuclear nonproliferation community continues to grapple with the dilemmas posed by India, Iran, and a potential expansion of nuclear energy across a wide swath of states. New institutional frameworks are needed to curb enthusiasm for engaging in uranium enrichment and spent fuel reprocessing. The United States, no longer the pre-eminent nuclear supplier, must gain wide support for implementing a vision of a nuclear fuel cycle that poses fewer proliferation risks than before. Moreover, the United States needs to begin taking seriously the NNPA's call to identify alternative options to nuclear power to meet countries' energy needs, particularly low-carbon-emitting sources."

Meanwhile, talks with North Korea have broken down again, leaving the North's nuclear program, along with other unfinished business from the Bush years, to the incoming administration.

Barfield on Afghanistan

So my office subscribes to a journal called Current History, and in perusing/swiping the latest issue, I noticed an article by Boston University anthropologist Thomas Barfield entitled "The Roots of Failure in Afghanistan." I can't link to it because Current History wants me to pay for the article (thanks guys), but I found it very insightful. Barfield identifies four critical failures of the reconstruction and stabilization effort since 2001: (1) the failure to deploy enough troops to secure the country, (2) the imposition of a highly centralized government on a country in which such a system had never worked, (3) the failure to commit sufficient resources to reconstruction, and (4) the assumption that Pakistan would support the US-NATO intervention. Barfield's opinion is that the first and third of these problems are slowly being addressed, and that the others are not. The question of the government is especially interesting in light of presidential elections scheduled for 2009; Barfield outlines a range of possible scenarios which include the unpopular Karzai government stealing the election, losing to a wildcard candidate, or (most hopefully) losing to a broad-based coalition which better represents the interests of the population.

One thing I can link to is the AIAS feature on my friend Noah Coburn, who when not researching his dissertation under Barfield in Istalif can be found tearing it up on the ISAF Frisbee field. What's up Noah!

Afghanistan and Other Conflicts

The NYT is reporting on Defense Secretary Robert Gates's visit to Afghanistan, where he is conferring with General David McKiernan on troop levels necessary to contain a growing insurgency. Announced increases included another 20,000 US troops to supplement the approximately 65,000 US and NATO soldiers currently in country, with as many as two brigades arriving by the spring, when violence typically picks back up after the relatively quiet winter months. McKiernan and his predecessors have asked repeatedly for more troops; current levels are sufficient to fight insurgents but not enough to hold the ground which has been won, and heavy reliance on air strikes has led to a steady stream of civilian casualties which, in combination with a corrupt and ineffective national government, have severely eroded the faith of the Afghan people in the current situation. Gate's visit seemed to reflect this sense of discouragement:

"What was striking about the trip was the tone of weariness that cropped up in the remarks of both Mr. Gates and General McKiernan about the Afghan war. “Let’s put it in historical perspective — this country has been at war for the last 30 years,” General McKiernan told reporters, using the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 as the starting point. “Thirty years. That’s not going to stop overnight. So if your question is might it get worse before it gets better, the answer is yes, it might.”"

Meanwhile, President-elect Obama is meeting with a commission led by former Secretaries of State James Baker and Warren Christopher to consider amending the 1973 War Powers Act, which requires Congressional approval of military operations but has, in general, neither been observed by presidents nor enforced by Congress. Proposed changes would grant to the president de jure most of the powers he or she currently enjoys de facto, while boosting the requirement for consultation:

"A president would have to consult with Congress before any “significant military action” expected to last more than a week or within three days of the start of action in circumstances where secrecy is paramount. This would not include short-term missions such as protection of United States embassies, reprisals against terrorist attacks or covert operations.

Within 30 days, Congress would vote on a measure approving the military action. If the resolution to approve fails in either house, any member could then introduce a measure to disapprove, which would be voted on within five days. If passed by both houses, it could still be vetoed by the president, so as a practical matter, Congress could stop a president’s war only with a two-thirds vote in both houses overriding the veto."

Restoring the Balance

The Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings Institution have released a book of Middle East policy recommendations for the incoming president, the result of an 18-month study conducted jointly by CFR and the Saban Center at Brookings. Apparently not everything is coming up roses:

"The forty-fourth president will face a series of critical, complex, and interrelated challenges in the Middle East that will demand his immediate attention: an Iran apparently intent on approaching or crossing the nuclear threshold as quickly as possible; a fragile situation in Iraq that is straining the U.S. military; weak governments in Lebanon and Palestine under challenge from stronger Hezbollah and Hamas militant organizations; a faltering Israeli-Palestinian peace process; and American influence diluted by a severely damaged reputation. The president will need to initiate multiple policies to address all these challenges but will quickly discover that time is working against him."

I will look forward to reading this and then getting drunk by myself.

Letter from Pashmul

My roommate Graeme Wood had an article about Afghanistan in last week's New Yorker. In it, he offers a snapshot of one of NATO's most controversial counterinsurgency tactics, the use of ethnic-minority Hazara police units to patrol Pashtun areas. Graeme writes:

"Alessandro Monsutti, an anthropologist who has studied the Hazaras, fears that the short-term gain of the Hazara units’ efficacy may be outweighed by long-term harm. “They’re very efficient for narrow, military targets,” he told me. “But what about rebuilding the country?” Donnelly, too, acknowledges that the use of ethnic militias could lead to explosive retribution when NATO leaves Afghanistan. (European use of privileged local minorities in colonial Africa contributed to the continent’s most destructive post-colonial wars, including the Rwandan genocide.) The Hazaras have not, historically, fared well in combat with the Pashtuns, although the policemen at Pashmul seem eager to try their luck. When Vollick asked them where he could get more police like them, they replied that they could raise a militia of a thousand men in their homeland, in Daykundi Province."

As the Obama team pursues what is expected to be a renewed US engagement with Afghanistan and pressures NATO allies to do the same, we will be watching for any shift in these and other tactics. Congratulations Graeme and looking forward to more.

Clinton vs. Biden

It's not exactly news at this point, but as part of his record-time staffing of key Cabinet posts, President-Elect Obama has announced his picks for key members of his national security team, including Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, Robert Gates to continue as Secretary of Defense, and General James Jones as National Security Advisor. The selection of Hillary Clinton, who will come burdened with several kinds of political baggage, has raised eyebrows; Politico has offered a reasonable explanation for the choice, focusing on the "team of rivals" philosophy. Here is a quote:

"A possible clue to Obama’s willingness to consider Clinton for chief diplomat can be found in a January interview he gave to Katie Couric, anchor and managing editor of the “CBS Evening News.” As part of her “Primary Questions” series, she asked him what books besides the Bible he would considers essential if he were elected president. “Doris Kearns Goodwin's book ‘Team of Rivals,’” Obama replied. “It was a biography of Lincoln. And she talks about Lincoln's capacity to bring opponents of his and people who have run against him in his cabinet. And he was confident enough to be willing to have these dissenting voices and confident enough to listen to the American people and push them outside of their comfort zone. And I think that part of what I want to do as president is push Americans a little bit outside of their comfort zone. It's a remarkable study in leadership.”"

This sounds good, but it raises the obvious specter of a potentially unproductive conflict between Clinton and Biden; while Clinton will nominally be the top foreign affairs advisor to the President, the presence of a VP with real-deal foreign policy experience and a habit of asserting his own ideas could potentially set up a tug of war. Along related lines, Global Dashboard picked up a post from the Atlantic Monthly's Marc Ambinder about the fate of Clinton's foreign policy advisors. Ambinder writes:

"So where does Hillary Clinton's foreign policy cabinet hang its hat for the next four years? Her main team consists of:

Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Dayton Peace Accord broker; Clinton's chief defense adviser, Bob Einhorn, a Clinton administration veteran and non-proliferation expert, Andrew Shapiro, Clinton's chief foreign policy adviser, Wendy Sherman, a senior adviser to Madelieine Albright and Warren Christopher, and Melaine Verveer, a former Clinton chief of staff and longtime Clinton confidante.

Now -- signing up for Team Obama, especially when things were not looking so hot in late 2007, was a real act of professional courage for many Obamaites. And there was quite a bit of tension between the two camps -- although it's not clear whether the principals listed above were involved.

Tensions have cooled; Clinton advisers are assisting Obama's transition team and serving on several advisory committees. But staff is destiny, and there are conflicting reports about how much latitude Clinton will have to bring her own team aboard."

We will look forward to seeing how this all plays out.

Renewing American Leadership

Welcome to my blog, where I hope to write (well, more like aggregate and comment on information from other sources) on foreign policy under the new (at this point, not yet installed) Obama Administration. I thought it would be appropriate to kick things off by linking to the article written by then-Senator Barack Obama in Foreign Affairs, part of a series of foreign policy pieces written by the then-contenders for the White House, in which the Senator outlined a muscular but responsible foreign policy, touching on three issues dear to my heart: the foreign policy implications of climate change, the growing threat of nuclear proliferation (state-based and non), and the importance of placing conditions on U.S. foreign assistance. If there is a unifying theme, it is the idea that the United States must stop defining its foreign policy by what it is against and start enunciating - and embodying - a better vision of what it stands for. Here is a quote:

"Finally, to renew American leadership in the world, I will strengthen our common security by investing in our common humanity. Our global engagement cannot be defined by what we are against; it must be guided by a clear sense of what we stand for. We have a significant stake in ensuring that those who live in fear and want today can live with dignity and opportunity tomorrow."

Over the coming months, one of my aims will be to track how the administration's policy decisions play out against the vision the Senator described in this article, the opening salvo of his foreign policy as a candidate for the presidency.