Lewis G. Irwin

U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Disjointed Ways, Disunified Means: 

Learning From America’s Struggle to Build 

an Afghan Nation

Disjointed Ways, Disunified Means: 

Learning From America’s Struggle to Build 

an Afghan Nation

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Strategic Studies Institute Book

DISJOINTED WAYS, DISUNIFIED MEANS:

LEARNING FROM AMERICA’S STRUGGLE

TO BUILD AN AFGHAN NATION

Lewis G. Irwin

May 2012

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For the dedicated professionals of America’s joint, interagency 

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v

CONTENTS

Preface .........................................................vii

About the Author .........................................xvii

Introduction ................................................xix

Part I: The Challenge of Afghanistan ..............1

1: Defining the Afghan Problem ....................3

2: The Scope of Irregular Warfare 

and “Nation-Building” .............................55

3: Evolving U.S. Strategic Interests, 

Options, and Risks .....................................83

Part II: Disjointed Policies and 

 Organizational Structures ...................123

4: Disjointed Policies, Strategies, 

 and Objectives..............................................125 

5: A Clash of Organizational Cultures 

 and Resources ..............................................173

6: Disunified Interagency Structures, 

 Processes, and Effort ..................................215

7: The Unsurprising and Uneven 

Results...........................................................259
vi

Part III: Potential Solutions ...........................289

8: Commonly Proposed Solutions 

 and Faulty Assumptions ............................291

9: Essential Elements of Any Feasible and

 Effective Solution.........................................327

10: A Way Ahead—The NSC, Combatant

Commands, and USRADCOM ................ 345

A Brief Epilogue: Contemplating the 

Context and Future of “Nation-Building”..... 385

Bibliography.......................................................395

Acronyms and Abbreviations ...................413
vii

PREFACE

From August 2007 until February 2008, I served 

with the U.S. Army in Afghanistan as the leader of 

an ad hoc interagency group assigned the mission of 

designing and implementing a nation-wide reform 

of the Afghan National Police. This extensive police 

reform initiative, dubbed “Focused District Development,” represented a major shift in focus for the U.S. 

agencies charged with developing the Afghan security forces and their corresponding Afghan governmental institutions—tasks clearly at the heart of any 

successful irregular warfare effort. Coalition and Afghan leaders alike deemed the mission to be of central 

importance to the ongoing counterinsurgency and, 

accordingly, the Afghan police development mission 

received enhanced resources and concentrated senior 

leader attention, as “Focused District Development” 

moved forward in its design, operational planning, 

and eventual execution.

In spite of these natural advantages, however, 

the development, coordination, and implementation 

of this high-profile initiative revealed to me major 

shortcomings in U.S. Government systems for coordinating and integrating the resources and effort of its 

agencies, at least at the operational level of activity. 

It was also becoming increasingly clear then that the 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) mission 

was falling well short of achieving its other major 

nonmilitary objectives, despite the hard work of so 

many. Given the central importance of U.S. contributions to the broader coalition effort, I began to wonder 

about the root causes of the interagency shortfalls I 

had observed, as well as about the potential reforms 

that might enable the U.S. Government to achieve true 
viii

interagency “unity of effort.” In short, how could we 

realize the genuine “whole of government” approach 

needed to achieve our complex national security objectives more effectively, efficiently, and directly?

As I prepared to return home at the end of my tour 

of duty, a series of fundamental questions remained 

unanswered:

• With so many talented people working so hard 

to achieve “success” in Afghanistan, why were 

the results falling so far short of the goal?

• Was the notion of “nation-building” in Afghanistan reasonable in the first place? Or was there 

something about Afghanistan that predestined 

“nation-building” to likely failure there, given 

the basic requirements of nationhood?

• Had the administration’s strategic guidance for 

Afghanistan been clearly defined and feasible? 

Did the capabilities, priorities, and effort of 

the various agencies match the requirements 

of this complex irregular warfare and “nationbuilding” mission?

• What specific shortcomings in the U.S. Government interagency processes were contributing 

to these shortfalls? Did these problems stem 

from structural or procedural deficiencies at 

the strategic, operational, or tactical levels of 

the national security apparatus, or perhaps 

from some combination of the three?

• Were there reforms of our national security 

structures and systems underway already that 

might reasonably be expected to solve these interagency problems?

• What elements would any national security reforms need to feature in order to be successful, 

given the practical realities of the agencies’ ex-
ix

isting mandates, core expertise, organizational 

cultures, comparative resources, and career incentives?

• What specific national security reforms might 

address those requirements directly, while 

overcoming likely practical and political obstacles to their implementation?

• What were the broader implications of these 

lengthy, resource-intensive irregular warfare, 

and “nation-building” missions for U.S. national security in general?

After returning home and continuing this line of 

inquiry, I quickly realized that the challenges I had 

discovered for myself were already commonly recognized by most practitioners and observers concerned 

with U.S. national security. In fact, these obstacles to 

unified agency and departmental effort were acknowledged to extend much further than any one operational 

theater or any one reform initiative. As a result, while 

my own operational-level interagency experience 

served as the initial impetus for my research, this book 

is not intended merely to recount my own experiences 

or to focus solely on the operational-level shortfalls in 

the U.S. Government interagency processes. Instead, 

the goal of this analysis is to carry out a much broader and more systematic review of our government’s 

strategic and interagency performance in Afghanistan 

to date, using the Afghan case as the vehicle for an 

investigation into the nature and root causes of the 

interagency problems I observed firsthand. I then use 

this analysis to frame potential corrective measures 

that can be applied to future irregular warfare and 

“nation-building” missions in particular and American national security affairs more generally.
x

Put another way—and into the Army’s vernacular—most military officers will recognize this book as 

an attempt at a thorough strategic-level “in-progress 

review.” Like any other review, the basic objectives 

are to facilitate a constructive dialogue while helping 

the participants get the answers right—and to help 

the United States to succeed in Afghanistan and in the 

other irregular warfare or “nation-building” missions 

likely to arise in the future. At the same time, I am also 

hopeful that some of these findings and recommendations can be applied outside the realm of national 

security to improve the articulation of strategic guidance and to strengthen other U.S. interagency relationships. Taken together, these are the primary goals 

of this book.

In many ways, the questions that have driven this 

research run in parallel with the American public’s 

growing unease with our goals, methods, and prospects for success in Afghanistan. The reader will have 

to judge whether or not my answers to these questions are compelling or satisfying, but collectively, 

they represent the truth as I have come to see it. As 

the title of the book suggests, my experience, research, 

and reflections on the U.S. effort in Afghanistan point 

toward fundamental shortcomings in America’s strategic processes and products at the national level—

coupled with structural deficiencies in the U.S. Government systems for coordinating and integrating the 

efforts of its various agencies—as the primary culprits 

in explaining the major shortfalls in the U.S. mission 

in Afghanistan over its course. In essence, I will argue that a risky combination of disjointed ways and 

disunified means has resulted in adverse effects that 

begin at the strategic level of national security activity, before subsequently trickling down to cause cor-
xi

responding problems at the operational and tactical 

levels of effort. I will also argue that if these proximate causes of our struggles in Afghanistan are left 

unresolved, this dangerous combination of disjointed 

ways and disunified means will pose serious risks for 

the future of U.S. national security. Furthermore, real 

change will not come easily, but instead, will require 

much heavy lifting, practically and politically.

With all of these assertions in mind, however, this 

book is intended neither as a “gotcha” exercise nor as 

some “tell-all.” On the contrary, I have a deep respect 

and abiding affection for the talented and hard-working members of the joint, interagency, and intergovernmental partnerships trying to realize success in the 

pursuit of remarkably difficult national security objectives in the face of equally difficult circumstances. At 

the same time, the evidence clearly suggests that the 

articulation of U.S. strategy by our leadership and our 

existing interagency processes for national security 

have fallen far short of what is needed for our nation 

to succeed in these incredibly complex and resourceintensive irregular warfare and “nation-building” operations. Putting this idea into Army terms as well, to 

this point there has been no comprehensive strategiclevel “troop-to-task” analysis, or any honest effort to 

match our national objectives with available capabilities. Nor has there been any serious attempt to mandate cooperation among agencies and departments. 

We can and must do better.

In terms of its structure, the book begins with an 

introductory section that briefly outlines the primary 

arguments that will follow, in the manner of an executive summary. The remainder of the book is then divided into three major parts, with individual chapters 

that aim to address the various questions posed earlier 
xii

in this preface. Part I of the book, “The Challenge of 

Afghanistan” and its three chapters, offers an analysis 

of the scope and depth of the challenges confronting 

the coalition in the Afghan theater of operations, as 

well as an examination of relevant U.S. interests, options, and risks. This part of the book begins with a 

chapter that considers the numerous social, political, 

economic, demographic, and historical factors that 

make Afghanistan a remarkably difficult candidate 

for irregular warfare and “nation-building” in the first 

place. As an extension of that theme, Chapter 2 describes the broad scope and extraordinary complexity 

of irregular warfare and “nation-building” missions. 

Chapter 3 considers the shifting nature of U.S. national security interests in Afghanistan and the region, 

while also offering a sketch of the varied motives and 

interests of other key national and transnational actors 

holding their own stakes in the outcome.

The second part of the book, “Disjointed Policies 

and Organizational Structures,” consists of four chapters, which present an analysis of the root causes of 

our strategic and interagency difficulties in meeting 

the challenges described in Part I. While Chapter 4 

critically examines and assesses the U.S. Government’s 

national-level strategic guidance for Afghanistan, 

Chapter 5 analyzes the predominant organizational 

cultural norms, existing core competencies, and comparative resources of the key U.S. agencies charged 

with meeting the demands of that guidance. Chapter 

6 looks directly at the shortfalls of the U.S. Government’s interagency doctrine, structures, and processes 

for integrating agency effort as they apply to the case 

of Afghanistan. Building on these findings, Chapter 7 

concludes this section of the book by cataloguing the 

corresponding unfavorable and largely unsurprising 
xiii

results of this strategic disjointedness and disunity of 

effort, all placed within the context of a truly challenging set of Afghan circumstances.

The third part of the book, “Potential Solutions,” 

considers commonly proposed potential remedies 

to our strategic and interagency problems, examines 

their prospects for success, and proposes an alternate 

set of organizational recommendations. Specifically, 

Chapter 8 examines frequently proposed solutions to 

the interagency problem, while also identifying a host 

of faulty assumptions implied by these potential solutions that render them unlikely to succeed. Chapter 9 

lists a set of characteristics that any feasible solution to 

the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency challenges will need to feature, in order for those solutions 

to be able to overcome the likely practical and political obstacles that any attempt at major organizational 

change will face. Chapter 10 concludes this third section of the book, by offering a set of potential reforms 

that could meet those standards. The book closes altogether with a brief epilogue, which contemplates the 

future of irregular warfare and “nation-building” missions and their broader practicality.

By way of my own background, I am both a longserving military officer and a professional political 

scientist, and I have applied both perspectives in this 

analysis. This “dual-hat status” was especially useful, 

given my particular duties in Afghanistan, since those 

duties provided me with the rare opportunity to interact with key leaders—ranging from the most-senior 

leaders of the coalition, the Afghan government, and 

the international community—all the way out to leaders at the “tip of the spear.” With this background in 

mind, the book also benefited from numerous U.S. 

Army War College seminars, U.S. Joint Forces Com-
xiv

mand training activities, Joint Forces Staff College 

discussions, academic conferences, interviews, and 

other research activities that took place subsequent to 

my return from the operational theater. Likewise, this 

book also represents the extension of a series of op-ed 

pieces and journal articles that I wrote, which helped 

to frame and refine these arguments. In that vein, I 

am especially grateful to the editors of the National 

Defense University’s Joint Force Quarterly and the U.S. 

Army War College’s Parameters for their willingness to 

allow me to incorporate into this larger effort the ideas 

that I had first expressed in those excellent journals.

Finally, while authors routinely offer the caveat 

that their works are possible only because of the efforts of others, I am confident that in my case this 

qualification applies to an even-greater extent than for 

most. During my comparatively brief tour of duty in 

Afghanistan, I benefited from the opportunity to work 

for a particularly gifted set of senior leaders and with 

selfless comrades who truly served the public interest. 

Among others, I developed great respect for then-Major General Robert Cone, Brigadier General Andrew 

Twomey, and U.S. Ambassador William Wood, as well 

as then-Afghan Deputy Minister for Security Lieutenant General Mohammad Munir Mangal—serving as 

the acting Afghan Minister of the Interior as of this 

writing. These leaders could shift effortlessly from the 

military aspects of the operations in Afghanistan to 

the political, economic, and sociological dimensions 

of the mission. They were equally conversant about 

the individual Afghan and coalition players and their 

strengths, weaknesses, and likely actions or reactions. 

The American people and our Afghan partners have 

been remarkably well served by these key leaders.
xv

Along the same lines, U.S. Army Colonels Pete 

Foreman and Mike McMahon provided much of the 

creative thinking and force of will that were central 

to the genesis of the police reform initiative that I 

worked to develop. Other comrades whom I counted 

upon heavily for friendship and mission support included U.S. Marine Corps Colonels Howard Parker 

and Mark Goldner, the European Union Police’s 

William Morrell, U.S. Aid for International Development’s (USAID) Barbara Krell, the State Department’s 

Merry Miller and Brent Hartley, Afghan interpreter 

Mattiulah Mati Sohawk, British Army Leftenant Colonel Dickie Winchester, the Afghan Ministry of the Interior’s Colonel Wakil, Navy Petty Officer Pete Wirebaugh, DynCorp’s Tony Campagna, MPRI’s Jim Lee, 

and U.S. Army comrades including Major Jesse Pooler, 

Major Matt Prohm, Lieutenant Colonel Brett Rypma, 

Colonel Mike Glenn, Major McKinley Cunningham, 

and Major Chris Crary. A special acknowledgment 

goes to Colonel Mike Haerr, a Soldier whose diligence 

and passion on the behalf of the Afghan people was 

unmatched in my experience. These comrades exemplify the concept of selfless service. 

Lastly, the arguments that follow are mine alone, 

and they are not intended to represent the views of the 

Department of Defense or any other organization with 

which I am affiliated. Among those organizations, I 

would like to thank my colleagues at Duquesne University for their habitual forbearance during my absences for military duty, as well as the faculty and 

colleagues at the U.S. Army War College and my comrades at U.S. Joint Forces Command and in the U.S. 

Army Reserve. I would also like to offer special thanks 

to Mike McMahon, Trey Braun, and Randy Boyer for 

their meticulous and insightful comments on earlier 
xvi

drafts, and to Douglas Lovelace and Dallas Owens of 

the Strategic Studies Institute for the great energy and 

enthusiasm they brought to the project. As always, 

however, my most heartfelt thanks go to Marcia, Mary 

Tristan, Eva, and Andrew for their affection and support.

Lewis G. Irwin 
xvii

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lewis G. Irwin is a Colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve and an Associate Professor of Political Science 

and Public Policy at Duquesne University, jointly appointed to the Department of Political Science and the 

Graduate Center for Social and Public Policy. In the 

Army Reserve, Colonel Irwin commands the 926th 

Engineer Brigade, and has served in a wide variety 

of assignments during more than 25 years of service 

in the U.S. Army. These assignments have included 

tours of duty in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Germany, including service with the 101st 

Airborne Division, the 1st and 3rd Armored Divisions, West Point’s Department of Social Sciences, and 

the U.S. Joint Forces Command, among others. From 

August of 2007 until February of 2008, he served with 

the U.S. Army in Afghanistan as the leader of an ad 

hoc interagency team assigned the mission of designing and implementing a nation-wide reform of the Afghan National Police, then known as “Focused District 

Development.” That effort continues today. An Army 

Reserve Adjunct Professor for Research at the Strategic Studies Institute of the U.S. Army War College, 

Colonel Irwin is the author of The Chill in the House

(SUNY Press, 2002) and The Policy Analyst’s Handbook

(M. E. Sharpe, 2003), in addition to numerous journal 

articles and other publications. Colonel Irwin holds a 

bachelor’s in civil engineering management from the 

U.S. Military Academy at West Point, a master’s in 

strategic studies from the U.S. Army War College, and 

a Ph.D. in political science from Yale University. 

xix

DISJOINTED WAYS, DISUNIFIED MEANS:

LEARNING FROM AMERICA’S STRUGGLE

TO BUILD AN AFGHAN NATION

INTRODUCTION

The International Community, including NATO, is 

helping the Afghan Government enhance security, 

improve governance and step up reconstruction and 

development. Progress in all three areas is essential in 

helping Afghanistan establish itself as a secure, stable 

country that poses no threat to itself or the International Community.

NATO’s Afghanistan Report 2009, 

 Foreword1

Remarkably ambitious in its audacity and scope, 

the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) irregular warfare and “nation-building” mission in 

Afghanistan has struggled to meet its nonmilitary objectives by most tangible measures. Put directly, the 

alliance and its partners have fallen short of achieving 

the results needed to create a stable, secure, democratic, and self-sustaining Afghan nation, a particularly 

daunting proposition given Afghanistan’s history and 

culture, the region’s contemporary circumstances, and 

the fact that no such country has existed there before. 

Furthermore, given the central nature of U.S. contributions to this NATO mission, these shortfalls also 

serve as an indicator of a serious American problem as 

well. Specifically, inconsistencies and a lack of coherence in U.S. Government strategic planning processes 

and products, as well as fundamental flaws in U.S. 

Government structures and systems for coordinating 

and integrating the efforts of its various agencies, are 
largely responsible for this adverse and dangerous 

situation.

As a rationally ordered expression of the ways and 

means to be applied in the protection of vital national 

security interests, strategy is supposed to represent 

a careful analysis and prioritization of the particular 

interests at stake. In turn, these interests are linked to 

feasible methods and the resources that are available 

for their protection, all placed within the context of 

competing global security demands and a serious consideration of risk. In the case of Afghanistan, however, 

U.S. Government strategic guidance has been disjointed--or inconsistent and lacking coherence--while interagency efforts have been “disunified,” with agency 

outputs too often fragmented, inadequate, or internally at odds with one another. As a result, U.S. strategic 

supervision of the Afghan operation has been muddled and shifting at best, even as our government’s interagency processes and available agency capabilities 

have fallen far short of what is needed to carry out the 

complex and broad requirements of irregular warfare 

and “nation-building.” Given the breadth, length, and 

expense of the U.S. commitment in Afghanistan, these 

strategic and operational shortfalls also carry with 

them potentially dire consequences for U.S. national 

security interests around the globe, considering potential first- and second-order effects and other associated risks. U.S. Government disjointed ways, coupled 

with a corresponding disunity of means, represent the 

proximate cause of our struggles in Afghanistan, and 

these deficiencies must be addressed if this mission 

and other similar future endeavors are to succeed.

Applying a finer resolution to the problem, these 

setbacks can be largely attributed to four related 

causes, each of which can be traced back to correxx
xxi

sponding shortcomings at the national strategic level 

of planning and decisionmaking. As a first root cause, 

our struggles in Afghanistan stem at least in part from 

the immense challenges that Afghanistan poses as a 

candidate for nation-building and irregular warfare 

in the first place. These challenges include significant 

economic, sociological, demographic, political cultural, geographic, and even anthropological impediments that continue to stand in the way of any successful nation-building in Afghanistan. Compounding 

these obstacles is the fact that there are both internal 

and external actors who regard the notion of a stable, 

secure, democratic, and self-sustaining Afghanistan 

as a potent threat to their own vital interests. Furthermore, these enormous challenges seem to have been 

largely underestimated, misunderstood, or ignored 

by national-level decisionmakers as the United States 

commenced irregular warfare operations in the region 

and subsequently expanded the effort to encompass 

Afghan nation-building. All in all, the public record 

yields little evidence of any frank acknowledgment 

or systematic analysis of these major obstacles as the 

United States added nation-building to the original 

combat mission.

As a second root cause of our difficulties, the U.S. 

Government has also failed to articulate and maintain 

a set of clear, consistent, and feasible national security 

objectives in Afghanistan. Nor have we linked those 

objectives to practical methods for achieving them 

that match the realities of the situation on the ground 

or the agency resources and capabilities available to 

execute them--failing to link strategic ends, ways, and 

means. Exacerbating this lack of strategic coherence, 

only in recent years has the United States defined 

the compelling national security interests at stake in 
xxii

Afghanistan and the region in a conclusive way. As 

a result, the justifications and desired end states for 

this mission have shifted and drifted over the years 

that the United States was engaged in irregular warfare and nation-building. Compounding this strategic 

drift, mismatched instruments of national power have 

been misapplied in the pursuit of two vague and possibly infeasible broader national security strategies. 

Reviewing the evidence then, the United States appears to have backed into nation-building in Afghanistan with little serious analysis of the likely costs, duration, or of the feasibility of the mission. There is also 

little evidence of any clear-headed sense of what the 

second-order effects of this “mission creep” might be 

for other U.S. strategic interests around the globe. In 

sum, the process of strategy formulation has clearly 

fallen short of what it is supposed to be at the national 

level.

Partly as a result of this strategic disjointedness, 

the third and fourth root causes of U.S. difficulties in 

Afghanistan represent natural extensions of these deficiencies in strategic planning and mission guidance 

at the national level. As a third root cause of our struggles in Afghanistan, there is a clear mismatch between 

the existing organizational cultures, core competencies, and available capabilities of the key U.S. agencies 

involved in the mission and the demands and requirements of irregular warfare and nation-building operations. In particular, the Department of Defense (DoD), 

the State Department (DoS), and the U.S. Agency for 

International Development (USAID) serve as the “key 

three” U.S. agencies with roles and responsibilities in 

irregular warfare and nation-building, with the U.S. 

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in the mix as a 

shadowy fourth. For a host of reasons, however, none 
xxiii

of these three organizations or the others charged 

with roles and responsibilities in these operations is 

well-suited to the particular tasks required of them by 

these expansive and complex missions.

Lastly, the fourth root cause of the U.S. Government’s checkered performance in Afghanistan has 

been its consistent failure to apply the full weight of 

its various instruments of power to achieve the desired 

goals. This problem is largely due to the inability or 

unwillingness of these various agencies to agree upon 

the operational-level ends, ways, and means needed to 

prosecute the mission successfully. This operationallevel disunity of effort also stems from structural deficiencies in the mechanisms for facilitating interagency 

coordination and integration, and this deficiency has 

contributed directly and significantly to the broader 

shortfalls in the Afghan mission. 

While these shortcomings in the interagency coordinating structures and processes are commonly recognized by participants and observers alike, there is 

no consensus regarding the corrective actions needed 

to solve this critical concern. Furthermore, the remedies applied to correct this problem to date have 

been more cosmetic than substantive in nature. So although there are many very talented people working 

hard to achieve “success” in Afghanistan, the efforts 

of U.S. agencies have been disunified in many cases 

and actually counterproductive in some others. Given 

the realities of major resource disparities, missing capabilities, and weak interagency integrating mechanisms, the United States turned to DoD as a stop-gap 

substitute for those missing capabilities. The United 

States also turned to DoD as a substitute for the actual 

robust “whole of government” interagency structures 

needed to meet the major challenges associated with 

irregular warfare and nation-building operations. 
xxiv

Having settled upon this approach for reasons that 

are justifiable in some respects and questionable in 

others, the evidence illustrates that this method has 

brought with it some advantages but also major and 

distinct disadvantages--and generally poor results. 

Accordingly, the U.S. effort in Afghanistan must serve 

as more than a mere cautionary reminder of T. E. Lawrence’s sage observation that even in the best of circumstances, irregular warfare is “messy and slow, like 

eating soup with a knife,” as thinker and practitioner 

John Nagl famously quoted in his seminal book on 

counterinsurgency.2

 Instead, we must learn the right 

lessons from our experience in Afghanistan, including the realization that achieving success in Afghanistan and in other similar national security challenges 

in the future will require more than simple, cosmetic 

changes to our national security apparatus. We must 

first improve our structures and processes for generating strategic analysis, plans, and guidance to achieve 

strategic coherence. Then we must reorganize the U.S. 

Government processes and systems for coordinating 

and integrating agency and departmental effort, if we 

are to realize the genuine unity of effort that will be vitally important in an era of constrained resources and 

emerging new threats.

ENDNOTES - INTRODUCTION

1. James Appathurai, Afghanistan Report 2009, Brussels, Belgium: NATO, 2009, Foreword.

2. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, Chicago, IL: University of 

Chicago Press, 2005 Ed., p. xii. 
1

PART I

THE CHALLENGE OF AFGHANISTAN

The first stage of the war verified the lesson proven 

over the centuries that Afghanistan is not such a difficult country to invade. . . . The bulk of the ad hoc 

Afghan army melted away, while individual fighters 

waited patiently for a better opportunity to resist this 

new wave of feringhees (foreigners). . . . The fighting 

took on the most brutal aspect of guerrilla war as the 

British in Afghan territory could not always tell for 

sure who was the enemy. 

Historian Stephen Tanner’s account

of the failures of the British “Army of 

Retribution” in the Second Anglo-Afghan 

War of 1877-801

In Afghanistan, we must deny al-Qa’ida a safe haven, 

deny the Taliban the ability to overthrow the government, and strengthen the capacity of Afghanistan’s 

security forces and government so that they can take 

lead responsibility for Afghanistan’s future. . . . First, 

our military and ISAF partners are targeting the insurgency, working to secure key population centers, 

and increasing efforts to train Afghan security forces. 

. . . Second, we will continue to work... to improve 

accountable and effective governance . . . focusing assistance on supporting the President of Afghanistan 

and those ministries, governors, and local leaders 

who combat corruption and deliver for the people. . . 

. This will support our long-term commitment to . . . a 

strong, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan.”

The National Security Strategy of the 

United States of America, May 20102

3

CHAPTER 1

DEFINING THE AFGHAN PROBLEM

The goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of 

democratic, well-governed states that can meet the 

needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system. This is the best way 

to provide enduring security for the American people.

The National Security Strategy of the 

United States of America, March 20063

In aiming to create a “democratic, well-governed 

state” in Afghanistan, the United States chose an extremely difficult candidate for nationhood or “nationbuilding” assistance. In fact, in many respects one 

would be hard-pressed to identify a less-suitable candidate for nation-building than Afghanistan, regardless of the specific meaning intended by that often 

used, but nondoctrinal term. At its most basic level, a 

modern nation must comprise a people, a functioning 

government, a recognized territory, and an economic 

base. Even when compared against that modest standard, the case of Afghanistan is problematic. 

However, when one carefully considers Afghanistan’s history, as well as its geography, demographics, tribalism, warlordism, existing political cultural 

norms, drug trade, crime, and history of ineffective 

governance and corruption—among other unfavorable factors and conditions—it becomes abundantly 

clear that there are major obstacles standing in the way 

of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) 

ambitious goals of effective democratic governance 

and nationhood. So the United States could not have 

chosen a more difficult nation to build, even setting 
4

aside for the moment the fact that it is not clear exactly 

what variety of “nation” the United States is trying to 

realize. Dimming these prospects further, there are a 

number of domestic, international, and transnational 

actors who are working just as hard to undermine this 

nation-building effort. 

AFGHANISTAN’S VIOLENT HISTORY

Afghanistan has long been known as a crossroads 

of empires, but in spite of the dramatic violence and 

persistent warfare that have characterized its past, the 

country has held little real influence or significance in 

world events over the centuries. Instead, the various 

Afghan tribes have remained largely isolated from 

external events, global trends, and one another. In 

fact, for most of its history, the territory now known 

as Afghanistan was not even considered to be a single 

country, either by the countries that bordered the land 

or by the Afghan tribesmen themselves.4 Consistent 

with this view, the focus of daily life among the various Afghan peoples has always remained at the tribal 

level, with the warriors of the assorted tribes and 

other ethnic groupings more than willing to fight one 

another when not working together to repel the frequent foreign invasions. The Afghan tribesmen have 

always fought and lived independently, remaining 

largely ungoverned outside their tribal structures and 

honing their martial skills by fighting among themselves when not fighting foreign aggressors.5

 The U.S. 

involvement there today is just the latest chapter in 

a long history of foreign invasions and interventions. 

Viewed holistically, Afghanistan’s military history, its culture, and its political development have 

all been shaped to a great extent by its topography. 
5

Afghanistan has no natural geographic borders, with 

the exception of brief stretches like the Amu Darya 

River in the north. Its harsh terrain consists largely of 

the Hindu Kush mountain range and the bleak deserts surrounding it, making for a land that is easily 

invaded but difficult to conquer. In the rugged and 

mountainous central regions of Afghanistan, there 

are numerous tribes living independently of one another and governed on a feudal basis. These tribes in 

the highlands have maintained their independence 

for thousands of years, even as the more sedentary 

villages on the transit routes have been routinely invaded and conquered many times over. In its essence 

then, most of recorded Afghan history reads as a long 

series of periodic, vicious wars between the Pashtun 

majority of Afghanistan’s south and east and a variety 

of foes, among them the Persians to the west, the Indians to the east, and the nomadic warrior tribes of the 

northern steppes.6

Emerging as a byproduct of Britain and Russia’s 

Great Game, Afghanistan was formally created only 

a few centuries ago, but the earliest written use of 

the word “Afghan”—ironically meaning “unruly” 

or “ungovernable”—is found as far back as the 3rd 

century. British historian Mountstuart Elphinstone 

visited the country in 1809, and he noted that while 

others called the country Afghanistan, the Afghan 

people themselves did not.7

 In forming the modern 

geographical and political entity of Afghanistan at the 

end of the 19th century, European surveyors chose 

Afghanistan’s largely arbitrary borders not with the 

territory’s various tribal structures in mind, but rather 

in order to create “the best possible buffer state between British India and the inexorable tide of Russian 

annexations in Central Asia.”8

 As part of this oppor-
6

tunistic mapmaking, the sliver of Afghan land that 

borders China was imposed upon Afghanistan by the 

British to ensure that no part of Russia would touch 

then-British India. In fact, the famous Durand Line, 

which delineates the Afghan-Pakistan border, splits 

the influential Pashtun ethnic faction roughly in half. 

Some historians believe that the division of this key 

ethnic group was done intentionally, to limit Pashtun 

power and to ensure that Afghanistan would forever 

be a weakly governed state. 

Serving as another similar but natural barrier to 

potential Pashtun influence, the Hindu Kush mountain range physically separates several Afghan ethnic 

groups that do not normally choose to associate with 

one another. Throughout Afghan history, the Uzbeks, 

Tajiks, and Turkmen of the north have resisted being governed by the dominant Pashtuns of the south, 

most often by force of arms. The Pashtun tribesmen 

represent about 40 percent of the overall Afghan population, making them the largest single ethnic group 

in the country, and they hold a disproportionate influence over Afghan affairs. However, they have never 

been able to impose any consistent control over the 

other ethnic or tribal factions within the Afghan borders, and as a result, Afghanistan has suffered a state 

of nearly constant civil war throughout its history. 

Adding further fragmentation and divisiveness to this 

warlike society, is the fact that even the various tribes 

themselves are not unified or homogenous, since 

there are numerous animosities at work inside each 

ethnic grouping as well. And whether categorized by 

broader ethnic group or by tribe, these animosities 

are persistent and remembered, often serving as the 

basis for sustained armed conflict and as enduring impediments to any potential reconciliation or political 

compromise.
7

Afghanistan has been routinely invaded, occupied, and abandoned by a long series of foreign 

powers throughout its existence. Greek historian 

Herodotus recorded the earliest known events in the 

territory; appropriately, these are accounts of fighting 

in the area in 520 BC.9

 In the 4th century BC, Afghans 

found themselves fighting Alexander the Great and 

his Macedonian armies, then the world’s preeminent 

military power. This conflict began the trend of numerous major powers invading over subsequent centuries. Conquerors from Babur to Genghis Khan to Tamerlane all failed to subdue the Afghan tribes, as each 

was able to seize or destroy the larger cities but unable 

to overpower the Afghan tribesmen in the mountains. 

Alexander himself eventually realized that he would 

not be able to defeat the mountain tribesmen, so he 

chose instead to employ them as mercenaries in his 

own empire-building, basically putting them on the 

payroll to prevent them from cutting his lines of supply.10

For centuries after Alexander’s eventual withdrawal, little of real significance to history took place 

in the territory now known as Afghanistan, as various 

foreign invaders came and went while largely leaving 

the mountain and rural tribes to themselves. Elements 

of Islam were introduced to Afghanistan as early as 

642 AD, and like other developments in Afghan history, this religious development came about as part 

of a foreign invasion. This invasion was quite similar 

to the others in that the invading armies successfully 

occupied Afghan territories, only to be resisted and 

ultimately expelled by the Afghan tribes.11 But even 

as Islam was introduced and took root among the assorted Afghan ethnic groupings, the Afghan territory 

remained a largely provincial, ungoverned, and rela-
8

tively unimportant corner of several larger and more 

influential empires.

Afghanistan’s relative insignificance did not mean 

that its frequent wars were not vicious, however. The 

extreme violence and harsh brutality in warfare that 

has been typical of Afghanistan throughout its history 

is rooted at least as far back as the early-13th century. 

In that century, the Mongol hordes under Genghis 

Khan descended upon what is now Afghanistan to 

lay waste to Balkh, Herat, and other cities, typically 

executing most citizens in any town that resisted or rebelled.12 In their wake, the Mongols left a major swath 

of destruction still visible today and inflicted upon the 

tribesmen a calamitous series of events that caused 

a severe setback for Afghan society, while indelibly 

shaping Afghan culture. After the Mongol invasion, 

a succession of Tajik, Turkmen, and other Asian conquerors alternated in exerting loose control over Afghanistan during the next few centuries. This list of 

subsequent invaders includes the Kart Dynasty of the 

Tajiks in the 13th century, as well as the Turko-Mongol invader Tamerlane in the 14th century. Tamerlane 

adopted the terroristic tactic of stacking the skulls of 

his many victims in pyramid-shaped piles to discourage resistance.13 Afghans are no strangers to brutality. 

In the 16th century, the rising Persian empire of 

the Safavids and then the Uzbeks and Ottomans took 

turns occupying what is now Afghan land. Following these and other subsequent foreign invasions, the 

country that is now known as Afghanistan was created in 1747 after the assassination of a Persian ruler. 

In response to the opportunity presented by this assassination, the Afghan tribal leaders chose Ahmad 

Khan Durrani as “Shah” for the Pashtun-speaking 

tribes in and around Kandahar.14 Often referred to as 
9

the Durrani Empire, Ahmad Shah presided over more 

of a confederation than an empire, after consolidating 

the disparate tribes into one kingdom. The kingdom 

came to be called Afghanistan, and the confederation 

clearly had a distinctive Sunni and Pashtun cast to 

it. In a recurring theme of Afghan history, within 50 

years of Ahmad Shah’s death, the country had again 

collapsed into civil war among its various ethnic and 

tribal factions.15

In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a focal 

point for the Great Game between the British and Russian empires and, as a result, Afghan leaders learned 

the practice of utilizing foreign benefactors as a substantial source of income. Likewise, revealing a willingness to change sides quickly when their interests 

changed, after turning on the British presence in the 

country, the Afghans committed remarkably brutal atrocities in massacring more than 16,000 British 

troops, family members, and camp followers in late 

1842 in the infamous British retreat from Kabul to Jalalabad.16 Legend has it that the few individuals who 

survived the massacre were left alive intentionally 

by the Afghans, to allow them to recount the scope 

and brutality of the event to the British government. 

Foreshadowing decisions that would confront future 

invading armies, “The crucial question for the British became whether to risk further armies that might 

similarly be wiped out . . . in a land that offered no 

benefits or revenue but only blood and expense to the 

Crowne.”17 In response to the massacre, the British 

government dispatched the ill-fated “Army of Retribution,” and this force suffered its own severe losses 

and ultimately retreated from the Afghan territory 

as well.
10

In 1877, the British embarked on another war in 

Afghanistan, this one having a punitive flavor as the 

British Army had not forgotten the events of 1842. 

Having entered the industrial age, the British enjoyed 

major technological advantages in comparison to the 

Afghans. The Afghan leader at the time was Sher Ali, a 

son of Dost Mohammad, another king who had seized 

temporary control of most of the Afghan territory. 

Sher Ali also sought to manipulate the Great Game between Russia and Britain to his and Afghanistan’s advantage, although he was hindered in this attempt by 

the fact that the Afghan villagers’ loyalties remained 

largely with their tribes rather than with any national 

Afghan identity.18 Britain’s second Afghan war ended 

much the same as the first, with the British formations absorbing major losses and ultimately leaving 

the country as quickly as they could disengage their 

forces.

After the British left once again, there were a number of significant internal attempts to centralize governing authority over the Afghan territory. However, 

while a few of these initiatives succeeded for relatively 

short periods of time, none succeeded in the long run. 

Abdur Rahman, known as the “Iron Emir,” ruthlessly 

attempted to break Afghanistan’s feudal tribal system 

with Russian support in the late-19th century, imposing a forced relocation of some tribes but meeting with 

limited success.19 As successor to the throne, Abdur 

Rahman’s son, Habibullah, used the limited centralized authority that his father had achieved to attack 

the British across the Indian border in 1919. This action ultimately led to an Afghan-British peace treaty, 

a reduction in British intervention in Afghan affairs, 

and some international recognition of Afghanistan as 

an actual country.20 Within Afghanistan, the 20th cen-
11

tury saw a succession of rulers seize power, but none 

of the leaders was able to centralize control over the 

country to any major degree. Of special note among 

these rulers, King Amanullah undertook another effort at broad political and social reform in 1927, an 

initiative aimed at modernizing Afghan society and 

weakening the tribal leaders’ power while centralizing governing authority. This reform initiative was 

initially successful, but it failed when Amanullah tried 

to enforce reforms such as mandatory beard-shaving 

and women’s education, unpopular changes that ran 

into stiff opposition from tribal leaders on conservative religious grounds.21

With the Bolshevik revolution unfolding about the 

same time as these events, the Russian government 

became the first country to recognize the new Afghan state. Further complicating any future potential 

Afghan unity, during the 1920s and 1930s thousands 

of Uzbek, Turkmen, and Tajik refugees crossed into 

northern Afghanistan while fleeing Russian encroachment in Central Asia. When Muslim Pakistan split 

from Hindu India in 1947, Afghanistan immediately 

requested that Pakistan redraw their mutual border 

to allow Afghanistan to encompass all of the Pashtun 

tribesmen. Pakistan refused, setting the stage for decades of strained relations over the so-called “Pashtunistan” issue. America began its own involvement 

in the region during this period, as the United States 

developed a strong relationship with Pakistan in the 

1950s that included membership in the Southeast Asia 

Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Central Treaty 

Organization (CENTO). This period also saw Afghanistan drift toward Russian influence as the country 

adopted Russian arms, doctrine, and advisers for its 

military.22
12

As a culmination of this drift toward Russia, the 

Communist Party of Afghanistan formed in 1977 and 

seized power over the central government in 1978, on 

the heels of the assassination of Daoud Khan. When 

the Soviet Army ultimately invaded Afghanistan in 

late 1979, within a matter of days the Russian Army 

was able to seize control of the major population centers and key infrastructure sites throughout the country. Soon afterward, however, Afghan religious leaders declared jihad across the country, and “the true 

fighting strength of Afghanistan began to respond.”23

Soviet planners had always considered Afghanistan, 

with its high rates of illiteracy, fractured feudalistic tribal culture, and subsistence farming economy, 

as the worst possible place for a “proletariat revolution,” but this assessment was ignored in the decision 

to rescue the failing Communist regime.24 Thousands 

of mullahs across Afghanistan declared jihad against 

the invading Soviets, and Afghanistan mobilized its 

strength in the rural, independent sections of Afghanistan, where the central government never could quite 

reach in the best of circumstances. These fighters, or 

mujahedeen, came to be called “freedom fighters” in the 

West, but the term actually means “soldiers of God.”25

From the beginning of the conflict, both sides 

committed widespread atrocities, but as the Soviets 

failed to meet their objectives, they eventually embarked upon a scorched-earth policy. These infamous 

“destroy-and-search” tactics aimed to lay waste to 

the rural mujahedeen’s vital center of strength in the 

countryside.26 Confronted with the Soviets’ clear superiority in technology and training, the mujahedeen 

came to rely upon raids, ambushes, and ultimately 

crude roadside bombs for their own attacks, as precursors to the asymmetric tactics and improvised ex-
13

plosive devices (IEDs) employed in the current war. 

Like many other wars through Afghan history, the 

Afghan resistance to the Soviets never really became 

centralized under any one leader, but rather consisted 

of decentralized leadership and execution in pursuit 

of a common, unifying goal.

During the Soviet war, the majority of the Afghan 

population was uprooted and forced to relocate as a 

result of the devastation in the countryside, with millions fleeing the country to Pakistan and many others moving into the Afghan cities to escape the rural 

destruction. If the Soviets had thought Afghanistan 

to be a difficult nation-building project before, it was 

now viewed as even more difficult, since most of the 

agricultural infrastructure of the country had been intentionally destroyed. Additionally, the Soviet Union 

repeatedly violated the Geneva Conventions by using 

nerve agents, mustard gas, and other chemical and 

biological weapons in the early years of the war.27

The Soviets escalated these tactics in 1984 by beginning widespread carpet-bombing of the remaining 

mujahedeen strongholds not under Soviet control. A 

United Nations (UN) report in 1985 described “serious and widespread abuses” by Soviet troops, including “bombing villages, massacring civilians, and executing captured guerrillas,” along with torture and 

“booby traps disguised as toys scattered around the 

countryside.”28 These brutal tactics resulted in countless civilian casualties but ultimately failed to subdue 

the tribes. Concluding that they had “lost the battle 

for the Afghan people,” the Soviets finally abandoned 

Afghanistan in defeat in February 1989.29 The Afghan 

tribesmen had repelled yet another foreign invader.
14

Upon successfully ousting the Soviet forces, the 

Afghans immediately returned to fighting among 

themselves, first by attacking their Afghan brethren in 

the Soviet-backed Afghan Army and next in a postwar power struggle among the seven Sunni factions 

that had fought together during the occupation. When 

powerful Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum 

turned on the Afghan government early in 1991, the 

mujahedeen were then able to seize control of Kabul 

and the government, just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the Pashtun tribes lost control of Kabul, 

a vicious civil war ensued, and most of Kabul was ultimately destroyed, throwing the country further into 

chaos, privation, and disorder. This civil war, coming 

after the brutal Soviet occupation and preceding the 

Taliban’s rise, is remembered by many key Afghan 

leaders today as having created the deepest scars on 

Afghan civil society, out of all the modern wars.30

At this point, the stage was set for the Taliban movement to emerge in 1994. It is noteworthy that the Taliban movement arose in southern Afghanistan around 

the historic Afghan capital of Kandahar and among 

the Pashtun people, who reached out to their Islamic 

leadership to establish law and order in a lawless and 

corrupt society dominated by warlords. A loosely 

controlled country even in the best of circumstances, 

it was during this same period that Afghanistan devolved wholly into an anarchic society and narco-state 

dominated by warlords, with illicit drug profits fueling the economy and the various ethnic, tribal, criminal, and warlord factions. Pursuing its own interests 

and ends, Pakistan reached out to the Taliban to assist 

in reopening southern Afghanistan as a trade route, 

bypassing the formal Afghan government in the process.31 The close connections developed during this 
15

period between the leaders of the Taliban movement 

and the Pakistani government, and in particular with 

the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate 

(ISI), remain in place. These connections shape, and 

in many cases undermine, the relationship between 

Pakistan and Afghanistan’s government today.

However brutal their methods—as evidenced by 

their original declaratory act of executing a rapist 

publicly—the Taliban initially found support among 

the beleaguered Afghan people because they offered 

a rough rule of law in a land dominated by criminals, 

corrupt government officials, and warlords. The Taliban, translated as “students” or “seekers” of Islam, 

attracted thousands of volunteers as the movement 

grew, including volunteers from the ranks of the native Pashtun, refugees, the homeless, the destitute, 

and the orphaned—all unified by the conservative Islamic ideology of the madrassas, the religious schools 

of the Pakistani refugee camps and the local tribes.32

While some observers have argued that the Taliban 

were a Pakistani creation in the first place, it is without question that Pakistan openly supported the Taliban until September 11, 2001 (9/11). Since then, U.S. 

officials have asserted that Pakistan’s covert support 

for the Taliban continued with ISI sponsorship for a 

long time after the public support ceased. It is also 

worth noting that some within the U.S. Government 

initially viewed the emergence of the Taliban and 

their draconian imposition of social order as a potentially positive development in Afghan affairs, in spite 

of allegations of Afghan complicity in the 1995 attack 

on the World Trade Center.

In any case, as the Taliban grew in strength and 

numbers, various other competing Afghan factions 

and the nominal Afghan government began to form 
16

a coalition in opposition. This opposition coalesced 

around Ahmed Shah Massoud of the northern tribes 

in the Panjshir Valley, and the group eventually came 

to be called the “Northern Alliance.” The alliance consisted of nearly all of the non-Pashtun tribes of northern Afghanistan, as well as a few disgruntled Pashtuns, united in a desire to resist the Taliban’s control 

of the country. Not surprisingly, once Ahmed Shah 

Massoud was perceived as a genuine potential threat 

to the Taliban and al Qaeda, he was targeted for assassination, like so many other leaders before him in 

Afghan history. Massoud’s assassination, just prior 

to the 9/11 attacks on the United States, eliminated 

what some saw as a genuine opportunity for the creation of a unified Afghanistan. For their own part, the 

members of the Northern Alliance demonstrated similar brutality in the aftermath of their eventual U.S.-

backed victory, as they were alleged to have herded 

several thousand Taliban prisoners into shipping containers—after which the prisoners were either shot 

to death or allowed to suffocate in the Afghan heat.33

These events merely served to reinforce the violent, 

treacherous, and even Hobbesian nature of Afghan 

society, which has figured so prominently in the country’s history from the earliest times.

Afghanistan’s Physical and Human Terrain.

Afghanistan’s terrain, both physical and human, 

makes the notion of building a cohesive, democratic, 

and self-sustaining nation every bit as difficult as does 

its violent history. Roughly the size of Texas, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan contains over 250,000 

square miles of territory and a population estimated 

at around 30 million, though there is little confidence 
17

in that number, since there has never been a systematic or comprehensive census of the various tribes and 

other smaller groupings.34 Afghanistan is a remarkably poor country, whether measured by per capita 

income or per capita gross domestic product. In part 

because of its history of frequent invasion as well as its 

lack of any tradition of effective central governance, 

the country is variously included with the Middle 

East or South or Central Asia, depending on the context and its current political circumstances. Long an 

international pawn of other more powerful nations, 

Afghanistan has been noteworthy primarily for the 

frequency and violence of its conflicts and because it 

must be traversed in order to carry out trade and other 

commercial activities in Asia. 

In order to survive, the tribes and the country’s 

occasional central governments have often cultivated 

donor states throughout its history. The major destruction of agricultural resources and infrastructure 

associated with the Soviet invasion of the 1980s rendered the nation almost wholly dependent on donated 

aid for subsistence, except for the thriving drug and 

smuggling trades. Afghanistan has some recently discovered mineral resources, but these have remained 

largely untapped, due to the persistent conflicts and 

instability that make foreign investment too risky to 

contemplate. Afghanistan is a land-locked country 

with porous borders, essentially a huge mountain 

range surrounded by desert plateaus. The peaks of 

the eastern portion of the Hindu Kush—usually translated as “Hindu killer”— rise over 7,000 meters high, 

with the mountains extending west and dividing 

northern and southern Afghanistan with strategically 

important passes interspersed periodically along the 

chain.35 The scarcity of paved roads, coupled with the 
18

difficult terrain, has made the country almost ungovernable from Kabul throughout its history.36

About half of Afghanistan’s land mass lies above 

2,000 meters in altitude, and there is little forestation 

across the country. Travel around the country, whether commercial or military, is therefore difficult, and 

the “ring road” is both the main source of trafficability 

for commerce as well as a main venue for corruption. 

Likewise, the harsh and variable climate adds to these 

economic infrastructural challenges. The mountain 

areas are largely barren, and although Afghanistan 

has enough water to support agriculture, the various 

major wars have seen the destruction of most of the 

irrigation infrastructure needed to support anything 

other than subsistence farming. Farming methods are 

primitive for the most part. Ironically, both Soviet and 

American engineers contributed to the construction 

of the original agricultural infrastructure, but what 

remains now is used primarily for the cultivation of 

the poppies that enable Afghanistan to dominate the 

world production of heroin—processed primarily in 

labs in Pakistan and the countries to the north. 

Influenced greatly by this harsh terrain, Afghanistan’s population is fragmented in very many ways. 

There are dozens of languages spoken in Afghanistan, 

including numerous local variations of Pashtu and 

Dari, a variant of Persian. These variations are significant enough that many tribes of the same ethnicity 

have difficulty communicating with each other, adding additional fault lines to the already fragmented 

nature of Afghan society. The primary identity for the 

average Afghan rests with the family and tribe rather 

than the Afghan nation, and the name “Afghan” is actually linked to the Pashtun language, since the Pashtuns are the dominant and most significant tribe po-
19

litically. As noted, population estimates vary widely, 

with projections ranging from about 10 million people 

in the mid-1970s to a UN estimate of approximately 

27 million in 2000.37 Recent estimates place the figure 

at 28-30 million, with fewer than 25 percent living in 

urban areas.38 These figures do not account for another 

estimated one million nomadic tribesmen who move 

in and out of the Afghan territory routinely, and the 

more recent population figures are even more unreliable—given the massive displacement caused by consecutive wars, including the Soviet conflict, the civil 

war, the overthrow of the Taliban, and the current insurgency. The Soviet destruction of rural areas in the 

1980s also caused an extensive rural-urban migration, 

creating a concurrent increasing demand for urban social services and placing additional major burdens on 

already overtaxed Afghan civil institutions.39

Regarding the demographics of the Afghan society, there are no simple classifications of Afghan ethnic and linguistic groupings, mainly because these 

groupings are so diverse and numerous. Afghans 

identify their tribal and family linkages as the qaum, or 

a “complexity of affiliations (and) a network of families or occupations.”40 The qaum may also correspond 

to a geographic location in some Afghan usage, but 

more generally it refers to the genealogical and cultural connections of extended family, tribe, tribal confederation, and social world. Among the numerous 

tribes, most estimates place the Pashtun ethnic group 

at approximately 40 percent of the Afghan population, and although this tribe is generally located from 

the southwestern to eastern regions of Afghanistan, 

the Pashtuns traditionally hold the dominant place in 

Afghan society in terms of size and political influence. 

The Pashtuns are further divided into tribal groups, 
20

with the Durrani Pashtuns representing about 12 percent of the overall Afghan population and the Ghilzai group representing about 14 percent.41 There are 

at least eight other major Pashtun tribes that combine 

with these two major tribes to encompass the Pashtun 

population in Afghanistan, further increasing the societal fragmentation.

Adding another layer to Afghanistan’s demographic complexity, the Afghan Pashtuns represent 

only roughly half of the Pashtun tribesmen altogether, 

since the other half of this ethnic group are found 

across the Afghan-Pakistan border in the east and 

southeast. Other Sunni tribes include the Tajiks at 

about a quarter of the total Afghan population, as well 

as the Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Qizilbash tribesmen, 

each with less than 10 percent of the overall population of the country. The Hazaras, long discriminated 

against for their predominantly Shiite Muslim faith 

and their Mongol roots, are largely isolated in their 

mountainous territory and account for approximately 

18 percent of the population.42 There are also many 

other ethnic, tribal, or socio-cultural groupings in 

Afghanistan, among them the Aimaq (nomadic herders), the Sunni Arabs of the northeast and west, the 

Kirghiz, the Baluchs, the Nuristanis, and several other 

major groupings. The northern region of Afghanistan 

also includes transnational linkages between the ethnic Uzbeks, Turkmen, and Tajiks who trace their lineage to the countries across the northern border. 

Even these numerous classifications miss much of 

the relevant demographic and ethnographic Afghan 

story, however, since each clan, tribe, and ethnicity has its own cross-group affiliations, cross-border 

transnational loyalties, tribal histories, and persistent 

animosities. This ethnic fragmentation is further com-
21

plicated by the steady flow of nomads and refugees 

across the mostly uncontrolled Afghan borders, ebbing and flowing depending upon the seasons and the 

circumstances. In sum, the fragmented demography 

and topography of Afghanistan, combined with the 

anthropological implications that correspond to the 

challenges of the human and physical terrain, represent major obstacles to any attempt at coherent nationbuilding within the Afghan population.

The Impact of Pushtunwali, Islam, and Other 

Afghan Cultural Norms.

In addition to the basic linguistic and demographic 

impacts that Afghanistan’s geographic location and its 

physical terrain have had on the population, the country’s mountain peaks have also served to separate the 

various Afghan tribes culturally in many other ways. 

These effects are magnified, when one considers Afghanistan’s porous borders and its proximity to other 

countries sharing ethnic and tribal ties. So even while 

the tribes hold certain key cultural values in common, 

the inhabitants of these different regions also take 

great pride in their own ethnic and cultural differences and their own tribal customs. Likewise, they also 

carry with them lengthy histories of tribal animosities 

and other conflicts that reinforce this separation. In an 

ironic twist, both the tribes’ intercultural differences 

and their intracultural similarities tend to pull them 

apart from one another, rather than providing any basis for coherence as a people or the building blocks for 

successful nation-building.

Moreover, it is the family that is at the center of Afghan life, rather than any national Afghan identity, and 

the family also serves as the country’s most important 
22

social institution. Adding to this fragmentation and 

isolation, Afghan families are routinely endogamous, 

marrying within their own lines; the extended family is the basis for most social and economic transactions.43 Extended families typically live in geographic 

proximity. Running counter to most reform initiatives 

over the last century or so—including the current attempts at societal reform—the cultural norms of male 

superiority and decisionmaking dominance are deeply ingrained in Afghan society. Afghans venerate the 

elderly, and Afghan society is highly patriarchal. Similarly, women’s activities are severely limited by the 

cultural norm requiring separate facilities and veiling, 

or purdah (seclusion).44 These cultural norms are widely held, especially among the rural tribesmen, and are 

intertwined with the two major Afghan cultural forces 

of Pushtunwali and Islam.

Regarding the first of these major influences, 

Pashtun culture revolves around Pushtunwali, a tribal 

ethical and legal code that emphasizes the concepts of 

honor, hospitality, shame, and revenge, among other 

social values.45 As noted, the Pashtuns are at the center 

of gravity of Afghan culture, though they are neither 

wholly dominant nor the only key players. Some of 

the main cultural characteristics of the Pashtun code 

include a “proud and aggressive individualism” and 

“obligations of revenge, hospitality, and sanctuary,” 

placed within the context of a “familial and tribal society with predatory habits.”46 The Pashtun code, which 

has overlapped culturally into that of other Afghan 

tribes to a certain extent over the centuries, also allows 

for the private resolution of economic or political disputes—resulting in a culture that encourages personal 

vendettas and generalized conflict.47 As an extension 

of this code, Afghans generally share a devotion to 
23

freedom as a societal norm and “will carry hospitality to embarrassing extremes but are implacable as 

enemies.”48

In terms of the formal rule of law, there are three 

different types of legal authority recognized to varying degrees within Afghan society, including the Shariah (or Islamic law), the jurga (or local Afghan law), 

and the national constitutional authority (the statutory law of Afghanistan). Of the three, the local Afghan 

law is the most commonly observed, and Afghanistan 

in general suffers from a shortage of the components 

needed to support and enforce the national Afghan 

law. Even at this point in the Western intervention, 

there are still few formal courts, trained investigators, 

prosecutors, lawyers, or judges to sustain the Afghan 

national justice system. Additionally, there is a basic 

cultural mismatch at work in Afghanistan, since Afghans do not pursue justice in the Western sense of 

the word. Instead, the Afghans apply a standard of 

justice that is closer to the idea of “practical conflictresolution.”49

Bridging the large gaps in these social institutions, 

Islam is a major, pervasive force in the average Afghan’s daily life. First introduced into the Afghan territory around 642 AD, Islam and the norms of Islamic 

culture also generally serve as common denominators 

across the Afghan tribes and Afghan society. Islam 

and Islamic normative values pervade Afghan society, 

including governmental, ritual, medical, juridical, and 

educational roles.50 Furthermore, Islam extends well 

beyond the Western view of religion, since it pervades 

all aspects of daily life, including governing. There is 

no distinction between politics and religion under Islam, and religious leaders hold major influence over a 

wide variety of societal decisions.51 For many Afghans, 
24

their only formal education comes through a religious 

school, or madrassa, or at the local mosque. Local religious leaders, or mullahs, are often appointed by the 

government, and they serve as local judges, arbitrators, and religious teachers, officiating at various ceremonies.52 The ulema are the well-respected religious 

scholars, the body of men who interpret the Quran 

and issue binding religious edicts, while also applying and interpreting Shariah.53 Amir Abdur Rahman 

attempted to elevate Shariah over customary Afghan 

law beginning in 1747, but there is still no one Afghan 

legal standard from tribe to tribe today.54

Given these weaknesses in Afghan governmental 

and social institutions, the preponderance of Afghan 

education and the transmission of cultural norms 

and values takes place primarily in the madrassas, the 

mosques, and at home.55 While measures of educational attainment and literacy are sketchy at best, prior to the Soviet intervention in 1979, the literacy rate 

was estimated to be 11 percent, with males at approximately 19 percent and females at about 3 percent.56 As 

one might expect, the literacy rates in the cities tend to 

be much higher than in rural Afghanistan, and most 

observers believe the literacy rate declined significantly during the Soviet war years.57 More recent estimates 

of the literacy rate range from about 28 percent to 35 

percent for adults, although this figure is not easily 

confirmed, given the lack of basic educational infrastructure throughout the country and the corresponding difficulty in measuring any social characteristics 

among the rural tribes.58 In any event, the means of 

distributing information are very limited.

In terms of public health, Afghanistan has some 

of the highest infant mortality rates in the world, and 

its life expectancy is very low—about 44 years.59 The 

healthcare infrastructure is extremely limited, and 
25

Afghan tribesmen typically count upon local healers, barbers, and other makeshift workers for rudimentary healthcare procedures and healing, rather 

than any governmental assistance.60 Adding to these 

public health woes, there are an estimated 10 million mines and other types of unexploded ordnance 

spread throughout Afghanistan as a result of the numerous wars, and these same wars have also resulted 

in millions of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDP).61 As a further indicator of the harshness 

of the land and the martial culture of the people of 

Afghanistan, the country’s national pastime is called 

buzkashi, a dangerous game with no explicit rules that 

involves players mounted on horseback competing to 

control the headless carcass of a goat, with the field often stretching over many miles of terrain.62 So whether 

viewed from the perspectives of the dominant norms 

of Afghan culture or the absence of basic social services, Afghanistan once again presents an extraordinarily difficult case for achieving stability, security, or 

any Western-style quality of life and governance. 

Afghan Political Culture: Dysfunction, 

Manipulation, and Corruption. 

In addition to the challenges posed by entrenched 

Afghan tribal cultural norms and the weakness of existing Afghan social structures, the goal of building a 

democratic, well-governed state also runs counter to 

the dominant norms of Afghan political culture. In essence, the country has never had a national democratic tradition, nor has it ever had a central government 

that was truly powerful enough to direct the lives of 

most Afghan citizens outside of the cities. But while 

Afghanistan’s central leaders have never proven ad-
26

ept at building effective governing institutions or providing basic services to the Afghan people, they have 

clearly and consistently shown the ability to manipulate foreign geopolitical interests in order to cultivate 

donations and to build personally lucrative relationships. Put simply, Afghans learned long ago how to 

survive as a recipients of international donations.

Accordingly, there are a number of key defining 

characteristics and dynamics within Afghan political culture that will have to be overcome in order to 

achieve any effective central governance where it has 

not existed before. For example, any successful reform 

effort will have to overcome the fragmentation and 

multiple, conflicting tribal and ethnic minorities that 

make up the population; the conflicting pressures of 

traditionalism and modernization; the difficulty of 

imposing (or superimposing) modern, sophisticated 

political methods and technologies on traditional 

tribal loyalties, norms, and structures; and achieving or creating a national Afghan identity that would 

trump local identities and loyalties.63 Additionally, 

since much of Afghan culture revolves around the 

norms of Pushtunwali, any successful governmental 

reforms will also have to accommodate this aspect of 

Afghan life, one that runs counter to many elements 

of Western-style democracy.64 Likewise, any centralizing governing reforms will also have to be able to 

overcome the focus of the average Afghan’s daily life 

on tribal events rather than national ones. Successful transformations would also have to overcome the 

average Afghan’s historical resistance to reform initiatives, efforts to impose changes in social norms, or 

attempts to exert external control. When coupled with 

the widespread norms and traditions of corruption 

and the common use of violence to resolve conflicts, 
27

the notion of affecting this kind of wholesale change 

in Afghan political culture represents a daunting task 

at best, if it is feasible at all.

Briefly reviewing Afghanistan’s political history, 

the first Afghan king, Ahmad Shah Durrani, ruled 

from 1747 to 1773 after being selected to lead an Afghan 

confederacy—not a strong central government—by 

the various leaders of stronger, more influential tribes. 

He was chosen for this role precisely because he could 

not challenge the other stronger “khans” for control 

of their various factions, and as such, he was a safe 

choice that ensured that the various factions would 

retain the real power in Afghanistan.65 Ahmad Shah 

Durrani essentially served as a “first among equals,” 

with the twin goals of preventing anarchy in Afghan 

society while bringing the tribes together periodically 

to repel foreign invaders.66 In general, the power and 

influence of Afghan monarchs has waxed and waned, 

depending upon the external threats and the particular monarchs’ skills and ability at keeping the governing coalitions together. In Ahmad Shah Durrani’s 

case, he used the technique of plundering neighboring countries and distributing the spoils of those raids 

as a means of keeping the tribes together.67 Given the 

long memories among the peoples and countries of 

this region, his raids had the unintended consequence 

of making neighboring countries wary of a strong Afghanistan, a concern that persists today. 

So even as the country of Afghanistan first began 

to take shape, the mutually reinforcing tendencies toward weak central governmental control and warlordism were already firmly established, characteristics 

that have continued to predominate without serious 

challenge over the course of modern Afghan political history. Upon Ahmad Shah’s death, his sons and 
28

grandsons proved to be far less adept than he was politically, and the monarchy collapsed until Dost Muhammad reestablished the throne in 1826, governing 

until 1839 and the first British intervention in Afghan 

affairs.68 The subsequent British disaster strengthened Dost Muhammad’s reputation, resulting in his 

governing as the Afghan king after the expulsion of 

the British in 1842 until 1863.69 This period also saw 

the rise of Afghan interaction with foreign powers, as 

Afghan leaders began to balance domestic political 

pressures against the intervention of foreign powers 

in Afghan affairs and the willingness of those powers to provide developmental and military assistance. 

Abdur Rahman, who governed as king or “amir” 

from 1880-1901, used this foreign assistance and ruthless practices such as hostage-taking to impose some 

central governmental control on the various tribes and 

factions across Afghan society.70 Abdur Rahman’s son, 

Habibullah, continued this system upon his father’s 

death.

Beginning in the 1920s, Afghan monarchs periodically embarked upon major social-reform initiatives, 

most often aimed at increasing education, women’s 

rights, or agricultural productivity.71 Next in succession, King Amanullah ruled from 1919 to 1929, and 

embarked upon ambitious Western-style reforms after a brief war with the British that saw the Afghans 

win recognition as a sovereign state.72 Amanullah was 

soundly rebuffed when his reforms ran contrary to 

conservative Muslim norms, and he eventually came 

under siege by tribal armies opposed to his educational and cultural changes.73 Like other Afghan leaders 

before him, Amanullah was largely undone by resistance driven by his direct challenge to the authority of 

the tribal leadership, as well as by conservative Islam-
29

ic backlash to the nature of his reforms. Among these 

social reforms were minimum age limits for marriage, 

monogamy for government employees, women’s 

education, and Westernized clothing for women in 

Kabul.74 The American governmental reform agenda 

in Afghanistan today is only the latest in a long history of attempts at Afghan social, governmental, and 

economic change. 

Viewed broadly, there is a modest precedent in 

Afghan society for a form of democracy, the shura

(local council) and its national counterpart, the loya 

jurga (great council). However, under the Taliban in 

particular and throughout Islam in general, there is a 

general distrust of democratic principles, as the ulema

either exercise the decisionmaking functions in toto

or do so in consultation with the appointed governmental leaders, rulers often appointed by the ulema

themselves.75 “The ulema’s attitudes toward local and 

international issues are central to governmental approaches,” and typically they oppose reformist movements while maintaining “suspicion towards political, 

economic, and philosophical notions born and fostered in the West (including) democracy.”76

More pointedly, over the years Islamic religious 

leaders in Afghanistan have equated modernizing 

reforms with direct attacks upon Islam and religious 

cultural norms.77 In fact, the whole idea of democracy 

represents a direct challenge to the ulema, since government is supposed to be consistent with Allah’s Divine Will and, under democracy, the ballot box serves 

to represent that Divine Will instead of the ulema

themselves, the ones who fulfill that interpretive role 

in Afghanistan and other Islamic societies that merge 

the secular with the divine.78 “Traditionalists emphatically deny Islam’s preparedness to acknowledge the 
30

right of people to have the final say (over Allah’s Divine Will and) the ulema do not compromise the Divine 

Voice of which they are the only lawful speakers.”79

Afghanistan attempted its first democratic reforms in 

1964, after hundreds of years of autocratic and fragmented rule, but these reforms failed as a result of the 

numerous cultural and practical impediments.80

To put these features of Afghan political culture 

into a modern perspective, while many Muslims expressed outrage over the Taliban’s alleged anti-Muslim behavior, many others “considered the Taliban’s 

administration the embodiment of Islamic law and 

politics.”81 Furthermore, as noted previously, Afghanistan has three types of law at work within its borders. 

The central government and international community 

are attempting to build and impose a Western-style legal system in Afghanistan, but the Shariah and traditional common Afghan tribal laws are more commonly enforced and observed. In fact, some scholars hold 

that “religiously conservative countries will always 

have difficulty establishing Western style democratic 

institutions and believing in them.”82 Exacerbating 

this problem, judges are scarce, poorly paid, barely 

literate, and largely unfamiliar with the constitutional 

law being advocated by the Karzai government.83 The 

other elements of the rule of law are still largely nonexistent.

As another facet of this challenge, in 2006 President Karzai appointed 13 former regional militia commanders as police chiefs, in spite of their ties to armed 

violence, organized crime, and the drug trade.84 The 

results are not surprising: Afghanistan supplied about 

92 percent of the world’s heroin in 2004, a figure which 

has increased in the years since.85 As one observer 

writes: 
31

Kept afloat by billions of dollars in American and other foreign aid, the government of Afghanistan is shot 

through with corruption and graft. . . . [P]eople at the 

highest levels of the Karzai Administration . . . including (his) own brother (since killed), are cooperating in 

the country’s opium trade. . . . [H]ardly a public transaction seems to unfold that does not carry with it the 

requirement of a bribe.86

The Kabul neighborhood of Sherpur is a wealthy 

enclave, with average Afghans referring to its huge 

mansions as “poppy houses.”87 “Transparency International” rates Afghanistan as one of the most corrupt 

countries in the world, ranking it 117th of 159 countries evaluated in 2005.88 Corruption is so pervasive in 

Afghan society that the Afghans speak of both “onefisted” and “two-fisted” corruption, or corruption that 

benefits one’s family or tribe as opposed to that which 

merely benefits the person perpetrating the fraud or 

abuse. Demonstrating a thorough misunderstanding 

of Afghan culture, many observers were shocked by 

the corruption that accompanied President Karzai’s 

reelection “victory.”

Along with this rampant corruption, the prospects 

for legitimate and effective governance in Afghanistan suffer directly from warlordism, as factional 

chiefs and warlords still hold the real power across 

Afghanistan.89 Afghanistan is currently controlled by 

regional warlords who “have divvied up the land into 

personal fiefdoms and transformed central government institutions, including the police, into instruments of their will.”90 While President Karzai rationalizes the selection of these warlords for appointment as 

officials of his government on various grounds, there 

is no question that this strategy has slowed develop-
32

ment within the country and has contributed directly 

to the corruption and the crisis of legitimacy that the 

government faces.91 The average Afghan has no basis 

for comparison anyway, as the actual Afghan state 

government has done little for the Afghan people historically, whether in terms of development, education, 

security, or medical care.92

As a byproduct of this situation, weapons are 

prevalent throughout the country, and typically warlords or strongmen raise their own militias, based on 

personal or tribal loyalties.93 Warlords and strongmen 

have included Gul Agha Shirzai in Kandahar, Mullah 

Aqib of the Alkozai, Aziz Sarqatib of the Ghilzais, Abdul Haleem of the Noorzais, and Haji Ahmad of the 

Achakzais, among many others.94 These strongmen, 

having been legitimized by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the U.S. military, and the Karzai 

administration, have used their positions within the 

state apparatus to consolidate their personal power 

by rewarding their followers with jobs and other positions of influence.95 Through these appointments, 

these men have been able to achieve power over the 

national institutions, including at different times the 

Ministry of the Interior (MOI), the Ministry of Defense 

(MOD), and others, in addition to the provincial government organizations.96 So after decades of war and 

the collapse of basic social services and governing institutions that were never strong in the first place, few 

Afghans even know “what right looks like.”97

As another unintended consequence of these appointments, the warlords have been able to stymie a 

variety of national governmental reform initiatives, 

including reforms of the police, MOI, and other national governing institutions.98 Without question, 

those in Afghanistan who threaten to use force tend 
33

to get what they want, as demonstrated early on in 

Kandahar by the U.S. backed Gul Agha Shirzai, a 

shady warlord with ties to Pakistan and the ISI.99 As 

another example of the Americans’ general misunderstanding of Afghan culture, on numerous occasions 

U.S. leaders would travel to meet at the homes or offices of appointed Afghan leaders. In Afghanistan, it 

is the superior who always hosts and takes care of his 

“subordinate” guests, so these well-intentioned but 

ill-advised gestures on the part of the Americans (and 

at times, Hamid Karzai) served to elevate the status 

and prestige of a number of dubious characters whose 

ultimate loyalties were still very much in doubt.100

In a simplified view, the national level of governance has always been the traditional nexus of corruption and abuse of authority in Afghanistan, with various strongmen vying for control of the instruments 

of power and absconding with donor countries’ aid. 

The tribe, on the other hand, has been the traditional 

and historical focal point for actual governance and 

the center of gravity of Afghan social and economic 

institutions. Any successful reforms or development 

in Afghanistan would need to build upon the triballevel strengths while finding a way to overcome the 

rampant corruption and abuse of authority commonly 

found at the national level of the government. Given 

the lack of democratic traditions or norms in Afghan 

political culture, and the dysfunctional nature of attempts at Afghan “democracy” to date, it must be 

acknowledged that any effort toward democracy in 

Afghanistan will be a long-term project. Furthermore, 

the reformers must also find a way to build upon the 

elements of Afghan society—such as the traditions of 

the loya jirga and the local shura—in order to achieve 

any realistic chance of success. Complicating the pros-
34

pects for any effective, democratic governance further, 

different factions in Afghan society view each other as 

enemies and in some cases as “infidels.” 

Some observers have argued that the cases of Switzerland and Afghanistan are similar, in that the goal 

has been to meld together disparate ethnic groupings 

into one strong governing society. However, whereas 

the Swiss ultimately achieved success through their 

rigorous application of democratic principles at the 

grassroots level, the Afghan peoples never have embraced that approach.101 Afghans have, however, 

matched the Swiss in their ability to provide mercenary fighters to various armies in the region. As 

a result, the inability of the Afghans to unite under 

one central government has long been viewed as a 

positive advantage to the other countries that border 

them, since they have been concerned about potential 

invasions by any centralized Afghan power. In sum, 

Afghans could rally to a strong national leader when 

there was good cause—such as an invading foreign 

army—but Afghans have typically resisted central 

governance, instead choosing to live as they have for 

centuries, with the tribe serving as the key component 

of governance in their daily lives.

Afghan Economics.

Unfortunately, the prospects for viable nationhood 

are not much better when viewed from an economic 

perspective. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world, with most of its inhabitants subsisting on the equivalent of a few dollars a day. The 

country ranked only 173rd of 178 countries in 2004 on 

the UN “Human Development Index.”102 In spite of 

the major influx of U.S. and international aid over the 

past 10 years, Afghanistan still ranked only 155th of 
35

169 countries evaluated on the UN index as of 2010.103

As a result of the focused influx of international aid 

over this decade, the legitimate Afghan economy has 

increased in size to about $27 billion in 2009 U.S. dollars, but this increase still leaves the country in 110th 

place, when economies are ranked by size among 

the countries of the world.104 Afghanistan is primarily defined by its barrenness and poverty, and both of 

those characteristics have been exacerbated by the decades of warfare. Compounding these bleak economic 

prospects are the widespread desertification, deforestation, and soil degradation in Afghanistan—the 

economic progress that the country made as a result 

of Cold War-era developmental aid was almost completely erased along with its agricultural infrastructure as a result of the consecutive wars.105 Reflecting 

these grim characteristics, Afghans still perceive their 

employment prospects as being low today in spite of 

the years of focused international assistance.106

The majority of Afghans engage in subsistence 

farming—with some sedentary and others nomadic—

often switching between the two methods, depending 

upon local soil and environmental conditions.107 This 

nomadic population has been variously estimated at 

between a half-million and 1.5 million people, though 

neither figure is reliable.108 Nor do the nomadic farmers and herders seem to worry about crossing international borders, which are usually unmarked and 

unobserved anyway. As a broader measure of the 

economic privation, Afghan worker productivity lags 

drastically, even when compared against the standard 

of nearby countries. Afghan workers produced about 

$333 worth of output in 2007, compared to more than 

$10,000 for workers in Pakistan and more than $20,000 

for workers in China.109
36

Over the course of the country’s history, Afghan 

governments have typically relied upon three sources 

of revenue—pillage, tolls, and foreign subsidy.110 Along 

these lines, Afghanistan has a long history of managing and manipulating foreign powers and donor states 

to achieve domestic political ends, and the country’s 

leaders have usually been quite adept at playing these 

donor countries and organizations off against one 

another. In the 1960s, for example, about two-thirds 

of the funding for development of Afghanistan came 

from foreign sources, most notably the United States, 

the Soviet Union, and Germany. Writing about this 

situation in the mid-1960s, one observer noted, “The 

Afghans are almost certainly aware that it will greatly 

increase the volume of aid if they can keep Russia and 

America trying to outbid each other.”111 In the 1960s, 

for example, Communist and Western aid amounted 

to 80 percent of the total developmental expenditures 

in the country, and by 1970 there were more than 20 

countries providing some type of assistance.112 In that 

same period, customs taxes and tariffs represented 45 

percent of all governmental revenues.113 In the period 

between 1957 and 1978, Afghanistan received foreign 

aid totaling $750 million from the Soviet Union, $346 

million from the United States, and 764 million DM 

from the West German government.114 This dependence is even more pronounced today.

Projecting forward, there are significant mineral 

resources in Afghanistan that could serve as the basis 

for a legitimate economy, though constant civil war 

and other major conflicts have generally prevented the 

exploitation of this potential wealth. Furthermore, if 

past history serves as a guide, it is unclear exactly who 

will benefit from the development of those resources, 

given the tradition of corruption and exploitation. 
37

Nevertheless, the types of natural resources found in 

Afghanistan include natural gas, copper, coal, uranium, beryllium, lithium, and other minerals.115 Afghanistan also has great potential for hydroelectric 

power, though the wide seasonal variations in runoff 

and precipitation mean that it will take substantial 

infrastructure development to take advantage of this 

potential—with that infrastructure also remaining 

susceptible to insurgent attacks. Only about 12 percent of the land is arable, or able to be cultivated, but 

the majority of Afghans—about two-thirds—engage 

in farming or livestock management.116 Any prospects 

for economic development are further dimmed by the 

widespread lack of education and the wholesale illiteracy of the people.

Other factors that adversely affect Afghan economic prospects include widespread soil degradation, deforestation, and desertification as a result of the years 

of war and civil strife.117 The country was hit with the 

worst drought in over a generation in 2000, and it is 

believed that millions of the Afghan people continue 

to rely upon external aid and relief supplies in order 

to survive.118 The problem of land mines is also acute, 

with some estimates claiming that there are nearly 

10 million mines laid throughout the country.119 The 

constant fighting in Afghanistan during the Soviet 

invasion created millions of Afghan refugees, many 

of whom fled to Pakistan, where they became indoctrinated by radical Islamist groups in the madrassas, 

which substituted for the overburdened Pakistani 

school system.120 The most recent Department of Defense (DoD) assessment notes that while international 

efforts at economic assistance have led to some pockets of increased activity, growth remains slow or has 

not even been assessed yet in most of the country.121
38

Unfortunately, there is one economic activity that 

is remarkably successful in Afghanistan, and that is 

the drug trade. Poppy cultivation and opium production in Afghanistan accounted for 93 percent of 

the world’s production in 2006-07.122 The 2007-08 

poppy activity involved an estimated 366,500 Afghan 

families, equal to roughly 2.4 million people, spread 

among 16 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.123 The exact 

measure is unknown, and a recent blight reduced the 

past year’s crop significantly, but it is estimated that 

the economic value associated with this illegal activity 

may equal as much as 33 percent of the country’s legal 

gross domestic product (GDP) in recent years.124 Furthermore, the State Department’s 2009 International 

Narcotics Control Strategy Report concludes that “the 

Afghan government has been unwilling or unable to 

fully implement [its national drug control strategy] 

and has failed to take serious steps to combat” the 

problem. The report goes on to assert that “many Afghan government officials are believed to profit from 

the drug trade,” while “narcotics-related corruption 

is particularly pervasive at the provincial and district 

levels of government.”125 The country’s porous borders, its tradition of smuggling and corruption, and its 

abject poverty combine to make any counternarcotics 

operations incredibly difficult.

Exacerbating these challenges further, Western 

efforts at economic development in Afghanistan run 

afoul of Islamic norms as they relate to economic life. 

First, Islam does not sanction the pursuit of profit 

merely for the sake of profit itself, but rather emphasizes the values of generosity, humility, and hospitality, which are contrary to the basic model of Western 

market capitalism. As one observer notes, “A totally 

materialistic approach is alien to the Islamic way of life 
39

and the historical tradition of the Muslim people.”126

Furthermore, there is a widely held belief among Muslims that “the western approach has been based on a 

disrespect, albeit not always explicitly articulated, for 

other cultures and social systems . . . (a sort of) cultural imperialism.”127 Representative of these claims, 

one Islamic observer from the region summarizes five 

reasons Western economic development models are 

at odds with Islamic cultural norms, or why Western 

economic developmental methods have not worked 

well in Afghanistan, asserting that:

1. The promotion of an imitative mentality is at 

odds with creativity and originality, creating an artificial demand for Western products in the process; 

2. The application of the Western model has been 

highly divisive within Muslim societies, perpetuating 

colonial traditions and creating schisms in the Muslim 

societies;

3. This effort has been extremely wasteful, inefficient, and costly, and has created norms of high consumerism in societies where there is little to consume;

4. Western “hedonistic individualism” is at odds 

with the basic tenets of the Islamic faith, and this shift 

in norms has encouraged individual greed and corruption at the expense of strengthening the broad national economic base; and,

5. This approach has assumed that legitimate economic development can occur without concurrent development in political systems, social institutions, and 

the moral attitudes of the people.128

As a result, many Muslims have resisted the Western model of economic development, with Muslim 

scholars arguing that “the totality and integrity of 

the social system has been ignored” in the rush to impose (or adopt) Western models of economic devel-
40

opment.129 These scholars push for the development 

of Muslim economic systems that are consistent with 

the teachings of Islam, but this distinction appears to 

be lost on the Western organizations seeking to “redevelop” Afghanistan.

The Taliban and Other Threats to Security, 

Stability, and Democracy.

The active opposition of regional and transnational 

actors who see a viable Afghan state as a threat to their 

own interests adds another layer that further dims the 

prospects for a stable, secure, democratic, and self-sustaining Afghanistan. In addition to the Taliban, there 

are a number of other criminal and militant factions 

working to undermine the statutory Afghan government, among them Hezb-e-Islami, the Haqqani Network, 

foreign fighters, some local tribes, and smugglers and 

drug traders.130 In his own analysis, former International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Commanding 

General Stanley McChrystal identified three main 

insurgent groups, including Mullah Omar’s Quetta 

Shura Taliban (QST), the Haqqani Network (HQN), and 

the Hezb-e-Islami movement headed by Gulbuddin 

Hekmatyar.131 Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami is an active 

militant organization that has historically received 

support from both Iran and Pakistan, as well as from 

the United States in the past—which is one indicator of 

the convoluted and intertwined nature of the threats 

to stability and security in Afghanistan.132 There are 

also several other political and ideologically-driven 

resistance movements active in the region, including 

the militant Jamiat-i-Islami (“Islamic Association”), 

which has fought bitterly against Hekmatyar’s Hezbe-Islami (“Islamic Party”), in spite of the groups’ common ideological beliefs.133
41

Not surprisingly, Afghanistan has a long history 

of transitioning governing authority, mainly through 

assassinations, power struggles, civil wars, coups, and 

intrigue. Ironically, the Taliban rose to power in large 

part because they were able to deliver some measure 

of security and law and order to the war-weary Afghan population, while the weak central government 

and the competing warlords could not.134 The Taliban tapped directly into the ancient Afghan history 

as a warrior culture, and the movement was further 

shaped by the 1979 Soviet invasion and the example 

of the mujahedeen. The Taliban’s rise was facilitated 

by the conditions of civil war and warlordism that 

prevailed in Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion, 

and the movement also sprang from the religious indoctrination taking place in madrassas in Afghanistan 

and Pakistan. Comprised primarily of Sunni Muslim 

Pashtuns, the Taliban were initially accepted by the 

Afghan people as potentially bringing peace, law and 

order, and stability.135 The group eventually lost the 

support of the Afghan people and the international 

community as a result of its extreme application of 

the ultraconservative Wahhabist interpretations of Islam.136

In general, the Taliban have two primary strategic 

objectives: first, reasserting control over Afghanistan, 

and then, eventually extending their movement to establish an Islamic caliphate.137 To further these broad 

goals, the Taliban aim to achieve four specific shortterm objectives: (1) mobilizing the religious publics 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan to their cause; (2) rallying the Pashtun tribes using the Pushtunwali code 

and the influence of non-Pashtun ethnic groups in the 

Kabul-based government as motivators; (3) building 

up confidence in their own organization by providing 
42

a shadow government and basic services in the rural 

areas, while simultaneously undermining confidence 

in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan government; 

and (4) expelling the Western “crusaders” in order to 

control eastern and southern Afghanistan as well as 

western Pakistan.138

To achieve these objectives, the Taliban’s organization includes specialized cells with responsibility for 

the planning, resourcing, training, and the execution 

of diverse activities ranging from information operations, to suicide attacks, to intelligence, finance, improvised bomb-making, research and development, 

and operations.139 A recent example of the Taliban’s 

information operations included their campaign to 

highlight the fraud that accompanied Karzai’s 2009 

reelection. The Taliban are further organized into regional commands and other elements that carry out 

administrative, personnel, and logistical functions, 

and they are suspected of having a political wing as 

well.140 The local cells or militias are typically self-generated at the lowest level, gaining the Taliban “franchise” designation and recognition from the central 

Taliban leadership once the cell has demonstrated its 

support and cooperation through tangible actions.141

Like the analogous al Qaeda cells, the Taliban’s 

local cells and militias largely retain their freedom 

of movement and action, running their own intelligence gathering, logistics, and population control 

activities.142 Taliban fighters are well known for their 

fanatical willingness to engage directly with better 

equipped forces, as in the words of one British Special Air Services officer who fought in Afghanistan, 

“Surrender was the last thing on their minds. . . . If 

they had a breath left in them, they would be trying 

to shoot you, so we had no choice but to kill.”143 The 
43

Taliban “organization has been able to build on tribal 

kinship networks and a charismatic mullah phenomenon to mobilize a critical and dynamic rural base of 

support . . . buttressed by Talib reinforcements from 

Pakistan’s tribal areas.”144

The “neo-Taliban” movement that has emerged 

since the fall of the Taliban to coalition forces in 

2001 is a more sophisticated force that is also more 

closely tied to the international jihadist movement.145

The neo-Taliban militias have been more effective 

at command and control, logistics, and information 

operations among other core insurgent competencies.146 The resurgent Taliban movement has grown in 

sophistication and effectiveness, and it is larger and 

stronger than the pre-2001 Taliban—while operating 

a parallel government in Afghanistan that is often 

more responsive to the basic needs of Afghan citizens 

than the actual government.147 The Taliban claim to 

represent both the Islamic faith and the Pashtun code 

of Pushtunwali, giving them moral and cultural credibility, since those two moral codes serve as the common denominators of Afghan society.148 The Taliban 

also continue to receive assistance from al Qaeda and 

the international jihadist movement.149 Finally, while 

the Taliban constitute the most significant and direct 

threat to potential Afghan stability, security, and democracy, they do not represent the only threat to those 

goals. A variety of transnational criminals, individual 

tribal factions, splinter cells of other radical elements, 

and other nation-state actors all have an interest in undermining the prospects for Afghan security, stability, 

democracy, and economic prosperity. These actors are 

examined in more detail in Chapter 3. 
44

The Bottom Line: An Extraordinarily Difficult 

Candidate.

In sum, Afghanistan’s largely arbitrary borders 

contain within them a wide variety of major obstacles 

that confront any foreign power aiming to create a coherent, stable, secure, democratic, and self-sustaining 

nation-state. A wide variety of Afghan social, political, 

economic, demographic, and historical factors stand 

in the way of the successful execution of the coalition’s 

mission, and these factors are severe enough to call 

into question whether the U.S. and NATO “nationbuilding” goals are even feasible or reasonable in the 

first place. Among other challenging aspects, Afghanistan encompasses discordant cultural and sociological 

factors, entrenched adverse political-cultural norms, 

a history of ineffective governance, tribal animosities, 

warlordism, corruption, economic privation, illiteracy, transnational crime, and a host of other elements 

that undercut Afghan prospects for success as a modern, conventional nation-state. In some respects, even 

the common denominators in the fragmented Afghan 

society, among them the moral codes of Pushtunwali

and Islam, stand in opposition to the creation of any 

stable, democratic society founded upon the rule of 

law, as opposed to the rule of men.

When these factors are considered together, it becomes clear that Afghanistan represents a remarkably 

poor candidate for nationhood. Afghanistan’s violent 

history, its fragmented tribal and ethnic structures, its 

numerous persistent tribal animosities, and the deepseated conservative Islamic resistance to modernizing 

Western reforms are just the first-order obstacles to 

potential success. Just as significantly, Afghanistan’s 

widespread illiteracy, its abject poverty, the country’s 
45

weak or nonexistent civil institutions and social services, rampant corruption, and the prevalence and 

predominance of drug activity and smuggling all combine to make NATO’s nation-building challenge that 

much greater. As if all of that were not hard enough, 

the prospects for success are further dimmed by the 

active opposition of a variety of domestic, international, and transnational actors who have a clear interest 

in thwarting the coalition’s effort to build that modern nation. Taken together, these realities combine to 

make the creation of effective, democratic governance 

and the development of a national Afghan identity 

exceedingly daunting propositions, if they are even 

feasible at all. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 1

1. Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo 

Press, 2002, pp. 206-207.

2. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government, May 2010, pp. 20-21.

3. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington: U.S. Government, March 2006, p. 1.

4. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 109. 

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid., p. 6.

7. Ibid., p. 5.
46

8. Ibid.

9. Ibid., p. 10.

10. Ibid., Chap. 2.

11. M. J. Gohari, The Taliban: Ascent to Power, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 3-4.

12. Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and 

Politics, New York: HarperCollins Press, 2002, pp. 23-25.

13.Ibid., pp. 24-25.

14. Gohari, The Taliban, p. 5.

15. Peter R. Blood, ed., Afghanistan: Past and Present, Los Angeles: IndoEuropean Publishing, 2007, p. 12.

16. Tanner, Afghanistan, Chap. 7.

17. Ibid., p. 190.

18. Ibid., pp. 204-205.

19. Ibid., pp. 219-220.

20. Ibid., pp. 218-219.

21. Ibid., p. 222.

22. Ibid., p. 226.

23. Ibid., p. 238.

24. Ibid.

25. Ibid., p. 244.

26. Ibid., p. 255.
47

27. Jeffery J. Roberts, The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan, 

Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, p. xi.

28. Martin Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan: Studies in Asymmetric Warfare, London, UK: Routledge, 2005, pp. 227-228.

29. Ibid., p. 231.

30. Recounted to Colonel Mike McMahon by various senior 

Afghan leaders during his tenure as CJ-7, Combined Security 

Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A). 

31. Tanner, Afghanizan, pp. 278-279.

32. Ibid., pp. 278-280. 

33. Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the 

Crisis of Afghanistan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2008, p. 320.

34. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 62-65.

35. Ibid., pp. 56-57.

36. Shaista Wahib and Barry Youngerman, A Brief History of 

Afghanistan, New York: InfoBase Publishing, 2007, 1.

37. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 62-65.

38. Joseph J. Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2011, 6-7.

39. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 62-65.

40. Ibid., p. 64.

41. Ibid., pp. 62-65.

42. Ibid., p. 65.

43. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 86-88.

44. Ibid., pp. 94-96.
48

45. Ibid., p. 66.

46. Ewans, Afghanistan, p. 7.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid., p. 12.

49. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan 

After the Taliban, New York: Penguin, 2006, p. 34.

50. Ewans, Afghanistan, pp. 7-8.

51. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 110-115.

52. Ibid., p. 111.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid., p. 113.

55. Ibid., pp. 117-120.

56. Ibid., p. 118.

57. Ibid., pp. 118-119.

58. Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, Cambridge, MA: World Peace Foundation (and Brookings Institution), 

2007, p. 143. See also CIA World Factbook: Afghanistan available 

from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos

/af.html.

59. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 123-124.

60. Ibid., p. 124.

61. Ibid., pp. 124-125.

62. Wahib and Youngerman, A Brief History of Afghanistan, pp. 

21-22.
49

63. J. C. Griffiths, Afghanistan, New York: Praeger, 1967, pp. 

65-68.

64. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, p. 66.

65. Nancy Peabody Newell and Richard S. Newell, The Struggle for Afghanistan, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1981, pp. 

34-35.

66. Ibid., p. 34.

67. Ibid., p. 35.

68. Ibid.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid., pp. 35-36.

71. Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the 

Crisis of Afghanistan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 

2008, p. 315.

72. Ibid., p. 37.

73. Ibid., pp. 38-39.

74. Ewans, Afghanistan, pp. 130-131.

75. Gohari, The Taliban, pp. 50-55.

76. Ibid., p. 60.

77. Griffiths, Afghanistan, pp. 83-84.

78. Gohari, The Taliban, p. 61.

79. Ibid.

80. Griffiths, Afghanistan, p. 90.

81. Gohari, The Taliban, p. xi.
50

82. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, p. 5.

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid., p. 7.

85. Ibid.

86. Dexter Elkins, “For Afghans, a Price for Everything,” originally published in The New York Times and subsequently reprinted in The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on January 2, 2009.

87. Ibid.

88. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, p. 7.

89. Ibid., pp. 44-47.

90. Griff Witte, “To the Warlords Belong the Spoils,” The 

Washington Post National Weekly Edition, June 22-28, 2006.

91. Ibid.

92. Ewans, Afghanistan, p. 11.

93. Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 18.

94. Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The NeoTaliban Insurgency in Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 2007, p. 16.

95. Ibid., p. 17.

96. Ibid.

97. Colonel Trey Braun suggested this point.

98. Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop, p. 17.

99. Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 79.

100. Ibid., p. 78.
51

101. Tanner, Afghanistan, p. 109.

102. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, p. 6.

103. “United Nations Human Development Index- 2010 Rankings,” United Nations Development Program, available from hdr.

undp.org/en/statistics/. 

104. CIA World Factbook: Afghanistan.

105. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 294. 

106. Department of Defense, Report on Progress toward Security 

and Stability in Afghanistan, Report to Congress of April 2010, p. 

59.

107. Blood, ed., Afghanistan, pp. 83-84.

108. Ibid., p. 82.

109. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, p. 143.

110. Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue, p. 85.

111. Griffiths, Afghanistan, p. 48.

112. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 159.

113. Ibid., p. 161.

114. Crews and Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the Crisis of Afghanistan, p. 315.

115. Gohari, The Taliban, pp. 84-85. In the summer of 2010, 

the Department of Defense also announced that geologists under 

contract to the U.S. Government had discovered major mineral 

and natural gas deposits. 

116. Ibid., p. 85.

117. Ewans, Afghanistan, p. 294.
52

118. Ibid.

119. Ibid., p. 295.

120. The 9/11 Commission Report, Official Government Edition, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, p. 63.

121. Department of Defense, Report on Progress toward Security 

and Stability in Afghanistan, Report to Congress of April 2010, p. 

59.

122. Christopher M. Blanchard, Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. 

Policy, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, CRS 

7-5700, August 12, 2009, p. 2.

123. Ibid., p. 3.

124. Ibid.

125. Ibid., p. 8.

126. Gohari, The Taliban, p. 69.

127. Ibid.

128. Ibid., pp. 68-72.

129. Ibid., pp. 70-71.

130. Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa 

Monica, CA: Rand Corporation’s National Defense Research Institute Press, 2008, p. xi.

131. Bob Woodward, “The Case for Afghanistan,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, October 4, 2009, p. 7.

132. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, p. 41.

133. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 14.

134. Ibid., p. 256.
53

135. Shahid Afsar, Chris Samples, and Thomas Wood, “The 

Taliban: An Organizational Analysis,” Military Review, May-June 

2008, pp. 58-59.

136. Ibid., p. 60.

137. Ibid., p. 64.

138. Ibid. 

139. Ibid., pp. 64-65.

140. Ibid.

141. Ibid., p. 65.

142. Ibid.

143. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 173.

144. Thomas H. Johnson and M. Chris Mason, “Understanding the Taliban and Insurgency in Afghanistan, Orbis, Winter 

2007, p. 71.

145. Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop, p. 13.

146. Ibid.

147. Pamela Constable, “A Modernized Taliban,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, September 29-October 5, p. 12.

148. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 266.

149. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, pp. 61-62.

55

CHAPTER 2

THE SCOPE OF IRREGULAR WARFARE

AND NATION-BUILDING

I don’t think the (British) government sees their way 

out of the terrible difficulty of setting up a decent government here at all.

British Colonel Frederick Rowcroft, 

in a letter written in 1879 while serving

in Afghanistan during the Second 

Anglo-Afghan War1

Irregular warfare and nation-building operations 

are incredibly complex, broad, and expensive undertakings in the best of circumstances, and a variety of 

foreign powers can ruefully attest to the fact that Afghanistan represents a particularly tough prospect. 

Formally speaking, irregular warfare is defined as “a 

violent struggle among state and nonstate actors for 

legitimacy and influence over the relevant populations,” as this type of warfare aims to “erode an adversary’s power, influence, and will.”2

 In our strategic 

approach to Afghanistan, the United States rapidly 

progressed from conventional combat operations at 

the outset of the conflict to irregular warfare operations, ultimately deciding upon nation-building and 

a full-blown counterinsurgency (COIN) effort as the 

key components of the strategy to deny a safe haven 

to al Qaeda. Most recently, COIN has been defined 

as the “comprehensive civilian and military efforts 

taken to defeat an insurgency and to address any core 

grievances.”3

 In its essence, the United States and the 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) have embarked upon a strategy for Afghanistan that requires 
56

the creation of a functional Afghan state in the midst 

of a protracted violent struggle with various nonstate 

actors. Or as the old saying goes, “We are building the 

airplane as we are flying it.”

Irregular warfare operations generally require 

substantial commitments of money, manpower, and 

time, especially in the particular case of COIN operations. Furthermore, the nation-building effort that sits 

at the center of America’s strategy for Afghanistan, 

and our two most recent U.S. national security strategies, strongly embrace the central tenets of liberal 

democratic peace theory. This is a theory that in its 

simplest form holds that democracies do not typically 

go to war with other nations without provocation. But 

while the empirical evidence related to the validity of 

liberal democratic peace theory is mixed, the evidence 

pertaining to the costs and difficulties of armed nation-building is conclusive. Nation-building is incredibly expensive and difficult, as it encompasses literally 

hundreds of complex and resource-intensive tasks, 

most entailing heavy costs. Even more troubling is the 

fact that the outcome of these expensive and difficult 

missions is never certain. Or, as another old Army 

saying goes, “The enemy always gets a vote.”

In the case of our nation-building operations in Afghanistan, the creation of a viable nation and a functioning government requires nothing short of affecting 

wholesale change in the country’s entrenched political 

culture, as well as constructing institutions needed for 

security; the rule of law; economic viability; and, local, 

provincial, and national governance. With these major 

requirements in mind, nation-building in Afghanistan 

is at least as much a social, political, and economic 

challenge as it is a military one. Nevertheless, in spite 

of America’s relevant history of involvement in irregu-
57

lar warfare, stability operations, counterinsurgencies, 

and the other “small wars” of our nation’s past, there 

is little evidence that the U.S. Government fully understood or acknowledged the scope and challenges 

of nation-building in Afghanistan prior to expanding 

the mission in that direction—or before deciding to 

embark upon a similarly difficult set of objectives simultaneously in Iraq. In any event, the United States 

clearly lacked the cultural awareness, civilian expertise, and military assets needed to set the conditions 

for success in irregular warfare and nation-building in 

Afghanistan at the outset of the mission.

THE GOALS AND METHODS IN 

AFGHANISTAN

Crafted a few years after the United States and 

NATO had already begun irregular warfare and nation-building operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 

National Security Strategy of the United States of America 

of 2006 offers a clear statement of the ultimate American strategic goals for Afghanistan. Strongly embracing democratic peace theory, the strategy identifies 

the promotion of “freedom, democracy, and human 

dignity” and the creation of “free nations” as the cornerstones of U.S. foreign policy.4

 Asserting that “free 

nations tend toward peace,” the strategy declares that 

the United States had “aided a new, democratic government to rise” in Afghanistan, while “working to end 

tyranny, to promote effective democracies, and to extend prosperity” more generally.5

 The document goes 

on to claim that “Afghanistan and Iraq have replaced 

tyrannies with democracies,” citing the ratification of 

a constitution and the creation of an elected legislature in Afghanistan as successes toward that strategic 
58

end.6 This strategy then offers a direct definition of the 

national security goal of “promoting effective democracies,” describing as the objective states that feature 

Western-style freedoms, the maintenance of order, responsive and effective governance, “independent and 

impartial systems of justice,” political participation, a 

resistance to corruption, and the protection of private 

property.7

Although they did not start out this way, by 

2006 the United States and NATO had settled upon 

two methods for achieving these strategic ends in 

Afghanistan, including the two separate but mutually reinforcing ways of irregular warfare and nationbuilding. Ironically, even as President Obama clearly 

backed away from the nation-building rhetoric in major speeches on Afghanistan and Pakistan in March 

and December 2009, his decision to commit increased 

civilian and military resources in Afghanistan in support of a full-blown COIN only served to reinforce and 

expand this status quo.8 A few months later, in May 

2010, the Obama administration published a complementary National Security Strategy of the United States

that superseded the Bush-era national security guidance, with the new strategic guidance placing far less 

emphasis upon achieving a Western-style democracy 

in Afghanistan. Instead, the new strategic guidance 

offered a more general call for a “strong, stable, and 

prosperous Afghanistan.”9 As noted, however, the 

President’s accompanying strategic decisions have actually served to reinforce and expand the two strategic 

methods currently being applied, including irregular 

warfare—or in particular, COIN—and the concurrent 

effort to build an Afghan nation.

U.S. national-level goals for Afghanistan are contained within the Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2007-
59

2012, published by the U.S. State Department and U.S. 

Agency for International Development (USAID).10 In 

February 2010, the State Department published the 

Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, a document in which State’s Office of the Special 

Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan outlines 

ongoing and proposed initiatives in support of viable Afghan nationhood, among them: “Rebuilding 

Afghanistan’s Agricultural Sector”; “Strengthening 

Afghan Governance”; “Enhancing Afghan Rule of 

Law”; and, “Building an Economic Foundation for 

Afghanistan’s Future,” among others.11 Former International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) Commanding General David Petraeus reinforced this approach, 

though perhaps scaling down the specific objectives 

somewhat, as the ISAF Campaign Strategy includes: 

1. “Protecting the population”; 

2. “Enabling the Afghanistan National Security 

Forces (ANSF)”; 

3. “Neutralizing malign influences” (including 

corruption); 

4. “Supporting the extension of governance”; and, 

5. “Supporting socio-economic development.”12

Without question, the U.S. and NATO goals remain ambitious. 

Furthermore, it is especially interesting to note 

that although the President and Secretary of State 

may have backed away rhetorically from the goal of 

a Western-style nation-state as the primary desired 

end-state for the mission in Afghanistan, the agencies, 

departments, and other executive arms of the U.S. 

Government have not yet changed their operational 

objectives to reflect that intent. Viewed from a practical perspective, however, perhaps the reality is that 
60

they cannot. That is, from one perspective, the conflation of the methods of COIN and nation-building in 

Afghanistan makes perfect sense, given that the United States and NATO cannot achieve the basic goals of 

irregular warfare and COIN without the existence of 

a legitimate and effective host-nation government to 

serve as the beneficiary or focus of that effort. Viewed 

from a different perspective, however, this dynamic 

represents a bit of circular logic, in the sense that the 

strategic methods are at least partly dictating the strategic ends, instead of the other way around—or the 

way it is supposed to be. In any case, the current U.S. 

strategic goals and methods require the creation of a 

viable Afghan state.

SO WHAT TYPE OF “NATION” ARE WE 

BUILDING?

While U.S. policymakers have focused on the functional processes of governance in defining prospective 

nationhood for Afghanistan, there is no consensus 

among scholars regarding the conventional definitions of the terms nation, state, or nationality. Defined 

by Webster’s, a nation is “a stable, historically developed community of people with a territory, economic 

life, distinctive culture, and language in common . . . 

united under a single government.”13 The root word 

nation itself is originally derived from the Latin word 

for birth, though variations in the definition over history have included some that have emphasized the 

elements of common ethnicity and language, while 

others highlight the aspect of living under the same 

political system or governing arrangements.14 Along 

these same lines, nationality usually refers to some 

subset of a group identity, while the term state has 
61

been defined as “the power or authority represented 

by a body of people, especially an independent government (and) political organization constituting the 

basis of civil government.”15 In its simplest form, then, 

the word nation refers to a “sovereign government 

ruling a particular territory.”16 Even when compared 

against these most basic definitions, the raw material 

of Afghanistan poses major challenges for nationhood.

Applying a finer resolution, sociologists, political scientists, and other social scientists have added 

texture and depth to these basic definitions. In these 

disciplines, the elements of common ethnic origins 

among a population, an accepted national identity, 

the exercise of sovereignty within recognized borders, 

and functional state institutions have all moved in and 

out of the definition of nation over the last century. At 

the same time, in most modern definitions of a nation

or nation-state, the “modern civic national identity” 

has come to predominate, as opposed to more traditional ethnic models of nationality.17 “Civic nationality” refers to the model of nationhood in which “the 

people of a society are bound together in common 

loyalty to the public institutions of a particular territory,” a loyalty that “typically arises because the people 

perceive the government as committed to serve their 

interests without reference to particular ethnic considerations.”18 Based upon the relevant U.S. and NATO 

goal statements, this civic model is the brand of nation

and nationality that the coalition seeks to achieve in 

Afghanistan, or one that is based upon civil governing institutions with a basis in the rule of law, serving 

the people without regard to tribal or ethnic origins. 

Given Afghan demographics, this is a tall order.

Refining this model further, this state-centered 

model of the modern nation-state must feature “min-
62

istries, departments, agencies, and a range of related 

bodies, (with each) reflecting a degree of institutional 

development within a polity.”19 This type of state 

must also achieve legitimacy to go along with this ministerial capacity.

20 In Afghanistan, the state has never 

had either of these critical elements to any serious 

degree at any point in its history and, with the majority of its population under the age of 30, “the bulk of 

the Afghan population is relatively unfamiliar with 

the phenomenon of state power, and some stand to 

lose if the central state is effectively consolidated.”21

Others have argued that the greatest single weakness 

of the Afghan state is its utter lack of a fiscal base.22

Furthermore, Afghanistan’s brutal history over recent 

decades has created a widespread mistrust of motives 

and agendas related to foreign benefactors and among 

the various factions of Afghanistan society, making 

the creation of a functioning civil society all the more 

difficult.23 So, by any definition, Afghanistan is a difficult candidate for modern nationhood, and while it 

is not necessarily impossible to envision Afghanistan 

meeting these rigorous criteria at some point in the 

future, it would clearly require an extended, resourceintensive commitment to realize that outcome.

OPERATIONALIZING THE GOALS

The challenges of nation-building and irregular 

warfare are even more dramatic when these broader 

goals are operationalized into the specific tasks required to achieve success. To exacerbate the problem, 

while there is now a wealth of current doctrine related 

to irregular warfare, COIN, stability operations, and 

other small wars, there is no commonly accepted definition of the phrase “nation-building,” since the U.S. 
63

government has struggled over the last several years 

to define its various requirements. Without question, 

however, irregular warfare and nation-building are 

complex, extensive, expensive, labor-intensive, and 

risky undertakings. Furthermore, for all of the expense 

and effort, success or failure is not wholly within our 

control, and even success may not ultimately yield the 

political outcome we are aiming for in the first place.

To put the scope and complexity of irregular warfare and nation-building into their proper perspective, former Afghan Minister of Public Finance Ashraf 

Ghani and Claire Lockhart identify 10 key functions 

of a state that must be viable for a nation-state to succeed. These include: 

1. Implementing the rule of law (most important); 

2. Providing security and managing the use of 

force (an army and police); 

3. Providing administrative control (adherence to 

standards and rules, and eliminating corruption); 

4. Managing public finance (budgeting); 

5. Developing human capital (education and the 

workforce); 

6. Providing social welfare (equal opportunity); 

7. Providing essential services (power, water, 

communications, and transportation); 

8. Managing public assets (buildings, land, and 

infrastructure); 

9. Establishing a commercial market (local and 

national economy); and, 

10. Facilitating public borrowing (a public credit 

market).24

Similarly, the U.S. Government’s own relatively 

recently created Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) identifies its own 
64

five “technical sector” requirements, analogous to 

lines of operations and necessary to support a country transitioning from armed conflict to stable society. 

The sectors are: 

1. security; 

2. governance and participation; 

3. humanitarian assistance and social well-being; 

4. economic stabilization and infrastructure; and, 

5. justice and reconciliation.25

In a sense, these sectors can be viewed as the minimum essential tasks needed for a society to achieve 

short-term stability, as opposed to the more-robust 

viable society that Ghani and Lockhart describe. In a 

major work that fleshes out the specific requirements 

that correspond to these sectors, S/CRS’s Essential 

Tasks Matrix is an exhaustive task-by-task list that 

stretches to nearly 100 pages of text and includes hundreds of challenging tasks.26 This matrix represents 

an incredibly detailed list of nation-building requirements, stunning in its breadth and depth. The huge 

scope of the matrix also gives a clear sense of how difficult and complex nation-building would be if done 

comprehensively and correctly.

On the military side of the irregular warfare and nation-building equation, the Army and Marine Corps’ 

Counterinsurgency Field Manual sets the bar slightly 

lower in defining the central task as supporting a government that features “a culturally acceptable level 

of corruption” while pursuing “legitimacy.”27 Nevertheless, the manual goes on to identify six possible 

indicators of governmental legitimacy—a primary 

objective of the COIN effort—including population 

security; the perception of a “just and fair” selection of 

political leaders; participative political processes; “re-
65

gime acceptance;” and social, political, and economic 

development.28 As an unintended consequence, these 

documents also yield a sense of the enormity of the 

requirements of nation-building, while also exposing 

the limitations of the various U.S. agencies’ existing 

expertise in the skill areas needed to carry out those 

requirements. The existing core competencies of the 

key agencies do not readily translate into the operational- or tactical-level capabilities needed to carry 

out the demands of nation-building, a topic that is explored in detail in later chapters.

Applying their own perspectives, analysts from 

outside the Afghan and U.S. Governments largely see 

the daunting nature of these requirements in the same 

way. These analysts argue that nation-state development in Afghanistan will require bringing about major normative changes in Afghan culture, even while 

requiring the simultaneous completion of a truly 

challenging set of institutional developmental tasks. 

Among these requirements, these observers note that 

the “nation-building” effort must achieve:

• National economic integration, since most Afghan economic activity is focused on local markets;

• Employment creation and poverty reduction, 

requiring both increased investment and increased productivity;

• The elimination of the opium economy, requiring the generation of viable alternatives and the 

implementation of the rule of law;

• A strengthening of the financial sector, including increasing access to credit markets and basic financial services and protections;

• Investment in basic infrastructure, primarily 

roads and power generation;
66

• Investment in human resources and skills development, such as facilities for basic education, literacy programs, and vocational training;

• Securing property rights and land tenure, as the 

years of war and massive displacement of the 

Afghan people have left confusion over land 

titles, property rights, and a variety of competing claims;

• A stable environment for private investment, 

including tax codes, business procedures, legal 

protections, enforcement of all codes and procedures;

• Institutions of good governance to overcome 

security concerns, weak central governing institutions, and a lack of economic infrastructure 

in finance and public works;

• The creation of a supportive legal environment, 

including a commitment to eliminate corruption;

• Engagement in international trade and regional 

economic cooperation;

• Asserting border control while facilitating trade 

and transportation; and,

• Generating legitimate revenue streams to fund 

all of these economic development and support 

activities.29

Each of these tasks is complex, broad, and difficult 

in and of itself, and achieving success in any one of 

these areas will demand a major and sustained commitment of resources and effort. Putting the magnitude of the costs and labor requirements of nationbuilding into perspective, the Congressional Budget 

Office estimates that it currently costs $250,000 to keep 
67

a single U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for a year, while a 

member of the ANSF costs $12,000 to support.30 Applying contemporary counterinsurgency models, former ISAF Commanding General Stanley McChrystal 

successfully argued that an appropriately sized COIN 

in Afghanistan would require a dramatically accelerated development of the ANSF to 240,000 soldiers and 

160,000 police.31 In addition to the 30,000 new U.S. 

troops that were required to implement the full-blown 

COIN effort in the near term—bringing the U.S. contingent to about 100,000 troops altogether—he also 

acknowledged that his population-centric approach 

would likely result in increased U.S. and coalition 

casualties.32 President Obama has recently reaffirmed 

that this current strategy will stand.

Viewed in the aggregate, and even before considering the increasing costs to the United States needed 

to meet the expanding requirements of the McChrystal and Petraeus plan, the Obama administration requested $65 billion to fund operations in Afghanistan 

for fiscal year 2010.33 Through fiscal year 2009, Iraq 

and Afghanistan have combined to cost the United 

States more than $940 billion, with Afghanistan representing $223 billion of that total.34 The actual U.S. expenditures for FY10 and FY11 will easily top $100 billion.35 Additionally, there are other less tangible costs 

that are not captured in these numbers, such as the 

human costs of civilian casualties, the wear and tear 

on American troops and their families, the economic 

drag of deficit spending, and other costs that are often 

difficult to measure but are just as real and significant 

to those who absorb them.
68

OTHER CRITICAL FACTORS

As if the complexity, scope, labor requirements, 

and cost of nation-building were not difficult enough 

by themselves, there are also a variety of other factors that have a major impact upon the prospects for 

success in this endeavor in Afghanistan. Chief among 

these other factors is the old Army saying that “the enemy gets a vote.” That is, these nation-building activities are not taking place in a static environment, but 

rather in one in which the enemies of a stable, secure, 

self-sustaining, and democratic Afghanistan are learning and adapting as they actively seek ways to undermine the host-nation government and the coalition’s 

efforts. Furthermore, the war in Afghanistan is asymmetric in nature, meaning that many of the American 

military’s technological and “kinetic” advantages are 

easily neutralized by the enemy, which aims to attack 

at points of weakness rather than attacking into U.S. 

military strengths.36

With the rise of globalization and transnationalism, asymmetric warfare is regaining its emphasis, as 

insurgents, weaker states, and Islamic extremists each 

seek to challenge the strongest nation-states. Typically, 

the Afghan mujahedeen of the 1980s would conduct 

ambushes and raids and avoid direct confrontations 

with the massed Russian formations.37 The insurgents 

today have maintained these same asymmetric tactics, although they also periodically conduct larger 

coordinated assaults. Even during the mujahedeen’s 

resistance to the Soviet invasion, the fighters tended 

to operate in small bands without much cross-group 

coordination or planning.38 The Soviet intervention 

in Afghanistan backfired, since their invasion undermined their credibility around the world.39 More 
69

pointedly, the United States was able to expend a few 

billion dollars in aid to the Afghan resistance, while 

Soviet Union costs were about $100 billion.40

In any event, the asymmetric tactics and the decentralized nature of the organizational structure of 

the anti-government elements offer both advantages 

and disadvantages to the insurgents, but they clearly 

present a major challenge to nation-building. Like the 

Russian Army of the 1980s, the U.S. Army that entered 

Afghanistan and Iraq was trained for conventional 

operations rather than COIN and has had to adapt 

to these tactics and circumstances. As a significant 

example of the Taliban’s adaptability as a learning 

organization, the Taliban began to abandon the fullscale frontal assaults that had characterized their attacks early in the war, and by 2006 had implemented 

suicide attacks as a major tactic, in spite of the Islamic 

and Pushtunwali taboos against suicide.41 The Taliban 

have also expanded their use of the Internet and free 

media as part of their recently more robust and more 

effective information operations campaign.

Among other key factors, the coalition’s objective 

of winning popular support for the central government is also made more difficult by policy uncertainty 

in NATO and the United States, and the knowledge 

that the U.S. forces will leave at some point makes 

Afghan villagers wary of assisting the coalition.42

Along these same lines, strategic thinker Colin Gray 

argues that the American public and the corresponding American military culture are “not friendly to the 

means and methods necessary for the waging of warfare against irregular enemies.” 43 This consideration 

adds an additional political constraint to the successful prosecution of the allies’ irregular warfare objectives—and, by extension, the nation-building goals, as 
70

well. He goes on to assert that these operations do not 

lend themselves to formulaic approaches, with each 

situation holding its own complexities and nuances; 

this is another aspect of the challenge that bodes poorly for the coalition, especially given frequent turnover 

among coalition personnel in the operational theater.44

Similarly, theorist Steven Metz argues that in its 

execution of the war, the United States has failed to 

distinguish between classic “nationalistic” insurgencies and the complexities of the tribal- and crimedriven scenario in Afghanistan.45 Among additional 

challenges that correspond to this scenario, he cites 

the inherent complexities that result from the enemy’s willingness to pursue ad hoc, strategic partnerships and alliances; their ability to move easily across 

poorly defended or uncontrolled borders; their fluid 

organization with quick reorganizational capabilities; 

and their ability to advertise or create name brands 

with psychological or political themes.46 Metz also 

argues that diverse insurgency environments require 

correspondingly distinct responses, differentiating 

between scenarios including: 

1. A functioning and responsible government with 

some legitimacy and significant U.S. interests; 

2. No functioning or legitimate government but a 

“broad international and regional consensus” (favoring state-formation and “neo-trusteeship”); and,

3. No functioning or legitimate government and no 

consensus for “neo-trusteeship” (calling for providing 

only “safe zones” for humanitarian relief).47

Lastly, another critical factor that will affect the coalition’s ability to achieve success in nation-building 

is the less tangible but essential requirement of redefining Afghan political culture to achieve any success 
71

that will endure. Afghanistan’s long history of violence, conquest, internal conflict, brutality, privation, 

and hardship is entrenched in Afghan society and its 

cultural norms. Those features of Afghan society, as 

well as the influences of Pushtunwali and Islam, will 

each directly and considerably affect the goal of building a stable, secure, self-sustaining, and democratic 

Afghanistan. Some argue that so far the United States 

has equated holding elections—however flawed—

with democracy, but real democracy and true democratic institutions are far harder to create.48

UNDERESTIMATING OR IGNORING THE 

MAGNITUDE OF THE CHALLENGE

In spite of all of these substantial obstacles to viable Afghan nationhood, there is little evidence from 

the public record or other indicators that the United 

States either fully understood or acknowledged the extent of these challenges before committing to the goal 

of nation-building in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the 

U.S. Government’s heavy reliance on the Department 

of Defense (DoD) to implement its evolving strategy, 

along with a basic lack of understanding of Afghan 

culture, has led to a variety of unintended and adverse 

consequences that have combined to undermine the 

Coalition’s prospects for success. At the same time, 

the United States has failed to appreciate the lessons 

of its own past experiences with regime change and 

nation-building as it moved forward with operations 

in Afghanistan, further failing to set conditions for 

success in the process.

Among other indicators of this strategic and operational shortfall is the low level of resources that 

the United States committed to the operation. In se-
72

verely limiting the size of the force initially deployed 

to Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld sought to validate his vision of a compact, mobile army and the administration’s power projection 

model, described by one observer as “a new model of 

hegemony defined, above all, by its extreme minimalism.”49 This approach, while possibly appropriate to 

the early phase of the operation and its focus on counterterrorism, proved wholly inadequate as the mission evolved into nation-building and COIN. Others 

point to the eventual use of hundreds of thousands of 

contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq to meet the unanticipated requirements of nation-building as additional evidence of the failure to appreciate the scope 

of the mission.50 The effects of these poor choices in 

Afghanistan were then multiplied by the decision to 

attempt equally ambitious operations in Iraq. 

Describing the U.S. Government’s performance as 

one in which insufficient resources were mixed with 

“ideological fantasy” regarding the ease of constructing democratic states, Anthony Cordesman of the 

Center for Strategic and International Studies asserts 

that the United States was unprepared altogether for 

the aftermath of the initial military success in Afghanistan.51 He further argues that the U.S. Government 

not only failed to distinguish between the military 

demands of counterterrorism and the much greater 

requirements of COIN, but that the United States also 

failed to apply adequate resources to the informational, diplomatic, and economic aspects of the mission.52

Cordesman notes that from the start, the United States 

has seemed to lack the political will to commit the resources needed to meet a likely mission timeline of 5 

to 15 years.53
73

As a simple measure of this lack of adequate resources and preparation, the U.S. military initiated the 

operation with only about 1,300 troops in 2001. In spite 

of the major mission shift to COIN and nation-building by 2004, the United States had only increased its 

forces to 26,500 troops by May 2007, serving alongside 

about 28,000 Coalition partners—or far less than what 

General McChrystal’s COIN plan called for in his ultimate request for forces.54 Operating on a dramatically 

smaller scale, the State Department typically could 

not fill even the modest number of positions required 

for its operations in Kabul, a situation made worse by 

the agency’s internal rules requiring volunteers for 

overseas postings. The Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) also reported 

major shortages in the personnel needed to train the 

Afghan police, citing a shortfall of 2,300 police trainers and mentors in 2009 that has persisted into 2011, 

in spite of the surge of military and civilian personnel. 

Agency by agency then, the resources have fallen far 

short of the levels needed to meet the demands of a 

classic COIN, years after the mission had first drifted 

in that direction. 

Along similar lines, the U.S. Government’s heavy 

reliance upon the DoD as the primary vehicle for 

achieving both military and nonmilitary objectives in 

Afghanistan brought with it a variety of unintended 

and adverse consequences. Perhaps most importantly, 

this military emphasis almost guaranteed from the beginning that the kinetic operations—or the military effort to defeat the Taliban and other anti-government 

elements—would predominate in U.S. and NATO 

operations, rather than other nonmilitary objectives. 

As one significant example of this emphasis, for a 

long time within CSTC-A, the military headquarters 
74

charged with developing the Afghan security forces, 

even after receiving the police mission, the primary 

focus remained on the development of the Afghan 

National Army (ANA) and the Ministry of Defense 

(MOD), rather than the Afghan National Police (ANP) 

and the Ministry of the Interior (MOI). It is natural 

that an army would feel qualified to build another 

army but not a police force. 

In fairness, this natural tendency on the part of 

the U.S. military to focus on the development of the 

Afghan Army was reinforced by international policy 

agreements that initially assigned the police development mission to other countries, agencies, and intergovernmental organizations. These actors were unprepared and poorly equipped to carry out that mission, 

a dire circumstance given the central importance of 

those efforts to the COIN and the creation of social 

order and the rule of law. As another adverse consequence of the U.S. “minimalist” and military-centered 

approach, NATO and U.S. forces were often forced to 

rely heavily upon the use of airpower in their operations, resulting in numerous civilian casualties, which 

served to undermine the credibility and popularity of 

both the Afghan government and the coalition forces.55

As another indicator of inadequate mission preparation, the United States demonstrated a broad lack 

of understanding of Afghan culture at the start of 

the operation by making choices then that have since 

combined to undermine the longer-term prospects 

for successful nation-building. Perhaps most significantly, one of the main features of the American approach has been the reliance upon Afghan warlords 

to exert control over the country. This remilitarization 

of Afghan postwar politics has underemphasized civilian institutional development in favor of military 
75

solutions to Afghan problems.56 Whether this choice 

was driven by actual operational necessity, inadequate force levels, a lack of Afghan human capital, 

or mere expediency, the collective effect has been to 

make achieving the subsequent nation-building objectives that much more difficult, since the United States 

and then NATO clearly failed to set the conditions for 

success. The roots of this U.S. (and Karzai) strategy to 

empower the warlords as a means of controlling the 

country go all the way back to the 1980s and the aid to 

the Afghan resistance, when Gulbuddin Hekmatyar—

despite being rabidly anti-American—was given the 

largest portion of U.S. aid in fighting the Soviets.57

There are other operational-level examples of this 

lack of cultural awareness. For example, an American 

observer recounted an Afghan leader in Kandahar describing his American partners as being “such amateurs.” This Afghan leader noted that the Americans 

“were honest to the point of simplemindedness,” taking their designated Afghan intermediaries’ claims 

at face value every time they identified someone as 

Talib.58 A U.S. military officer operating in Kandahar 

early in the military intervention in Afghanistan identified many instances in which American troops demonstrated a clear lack of understanding of Afghan cultural norms—creating animosity among the Afghan 

population, along with other adverse consequences 

for the mission.59

Another example of this consequential Western 

misunderstanding of Afghan culture and the state of 

Afghan governing institutions is that benefactors typically tend to try to support the government by supporting the incumbents in particular offices. However, 

in Afghanistan, with its absence of checks and balances and its fledgling institutions, this approach too of-
76

ten leads to easy corruption and abuse of authority.60

Perversely, the U.S. Government’s contracting process 

has had the same unintended effect of strengthening 

local warlords by enabling them to skim money from 

contracts as they dole out jobs, pay, and the benefits 

of the projects to their supporters.61 So, in a culture 

that emphasizes superior force and the willingness to 

use that force, reformers have been easily trumped by 

manipulative warlords, corrupt officials, and resistant 

tribesmen, especially given those tribesmen’s conservative Muslim cultural norms.

Another telling example of the West’s lack of Afghan cultural awareness is that the United States and 

NATO have professed to be shocked by the rampant 

corruption that attended the 2009 presidential elections that returned Karzai to office, and in the parliamentary elections of 2010. However, the far more 

shocking outcome would have been if there had been 

no widespread fraud or corruption, given the prevailing Afghan political-cultural norms. As another indicator of the inadequacy of the resources committed to 

nation-building, this corruption was enabled in part 

by the fact that the coalition lacked sufficient resources 

to cover most of the hundreds of polling sites spread 

throughout the country in both sets of elections. 

As a final point, the United States has shown an 

obvious lack of appreciation of its own relevant history of operations aimed at regime changes and nationbuilding as it has proceeded in Afghanistan. Directly 

stated, as the mission in Afghanistan evolved into 

nation-building from its initial emphasis on counterterrorism and the removal of the Taliban, American 

leaders—much like their Russian counterparts of 

the late 1970s—overlooked critical factors that have 

predicted success in past operations of these types. 
77

In particular, permissive security environments and 

previously existing social, economic, educational, and 

political structures have served as predictors of the 

likelihood of success in the past. In a straightforward 

National Defense University analysis that considered 

U.S. regime change and reconstruction activities in 

Germany, Japan, Somalia, Haiti, the Balkans, Iraq, 

and Afghanistan, scholars Hans Bennendijk and Stuart Johnson find a clear correlation between success in 

these reconstruction and development operations and 

low levels of “continuing hostile activities,” coupled 

with the existence of the social, political, and economic infrastructure and human capital needed to serve 

as the foundation for the reconstructed society.62 Conversely in Afghanistan, the Afghan government of the 

1970s was just as inept and corrupt as it is today, and 

the country has never had effective social, educational, or governing institutions or even decent standards 

of literacy.63 Therefore, Afghanistan’s nation-builders 

are starting from scratch, or are perhaps even worse 

off than that, given the numerous obstacles that they 

must overcome to achieve success. 

Taken together, these essential considerations 

were seemingly underestimated or ignored—and 

Afghan culture and its implications poorly understood—as the United States and NATO undertook 

this ambitious and difficult mission, much as the Soviets ignored those same adverse circumstances in their 

rush to prop up a failing Communist regime in the 

1980s. So there is little evidence that the U.S. Government fully appreciated the magnitude of the challenge 

posed by Afghanistan as a candidate for nationhood, 

just as there is little evidence that the U.S. Government fully acknowledged the scope and challenges of 

nation-building prior to allowing the Afghan mission 
78

to expand in that direction. The evidence also suggests that the United States did not weigh the likely 

costs or scope of nation-building in Afghanistan prior 

to embarking on a similar mission in Iraq—even as 

we recognize that Iraq was a much different situation. In the best of cases, nation-building is extremely 

challenging, and the U.S. Government failed to grasp 

both the scope of nation-building in general, as well as 

the difficulty of Afghanistan in particular, before going forward. The notion of seeing Afghan nationhood 

through to its fruition remains a daunting, expensive, 

and lengthy proposition.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 2

1. Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo 

Press, 2002, p. 214.

2. Irregular Warfare: Countering Irregular Threats, Joint Operating Concept Version 2.0, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, 

May 17, 2010, p. B-2.

3. Ibid., p. B-1.

4. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, March 2006, p. 1.

5. Ibid., pp. 1-2.

6. Ibid., p. 3.

7. Ibid., p. 4.

8. Transcripts of these two speeches of March 27, 2009, and 

December 1, 2009, are available from www.whitehouse.gov. 
79

9. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 2010, p. 21.

10. U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2007-2012, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, May 7, 2008, pp. 9-42.

11. U.S. Department of State, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional 

Stabilization Strategy, Washington, DC: State Department, February 2010, Table of Contents.

12. Report on Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan, Report to Congress of April 2010, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, pp. 12-13.

13. Victoria Neufeldt, ed., Webster’s New World College Dictionary, 3rd Ed., New York: MacMillan, 1996, p. 903.

14. Philip L. White and Michael L. White, eds., “What Is A 

Nationality?” Chap. 1, Nationality in World History, 2008, available 

from www.nationalityinworldhistory.net.

15. Neufeldt, p. 1309.

16. White and White.

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid. 

19. William Maley, Rescuing Afghanistan, Sydney, Australia: 

University of New South Wales Press, 2006, p. 15.

20. Ibid.

21. Ibid., p. 17.

22. Ibid., p. 16.

23. Ibid., p. 19.
80

24. Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States, Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008, pp. 124-163.

25. Thomas S. Szayna, Derek Eaton, and Amy Richardson, 

Preparing the Army for Stability Operations, Santa Monica, CA: 

Rand Corporation, 2007, pp. 16-17.

26. Ibid., pp. 131-226.

27. Department of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 3-24: Counterinsurgency Field Manual, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press 

Ed., 2007, p. 38.

28. Ibid.

29. Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, Cambridge, MA: World Peace Foundation and Brookings Institution, 

2007, pp. 146-152.

30. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Sticker Shock,” The Washington 

Post National Weekly Edition, October 12-18, 2009, p. 12.

31. Bob Woodward, “The Case for Afghanistan,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, October 4-11, 2009, p. 6.

32. Ibid.

33. Karen DeYoung, “A Puzzle for Congress,” The Washington 

Post National Weekly Edition, December 7-13, 2009, p. 19.

34. Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other GWOT 

Operations Since 9/11, Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, RL33110, May 15, 2009, summary.

35. Joseph J. Collins, Understanding War in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2011, p. 91.

36. Martin Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan: Studies in Asymmetric Warfare, London, UK: Routledge, 2005, p. 1.

37. Ibid., p. 218.
81

38. Ibid., p. 217.

39. Radek Sikorski, “Mujaheddin Memories,” National Review, 

Vol. 56, No. 16, August 23, 2004, p. 43; Review of Steve Coll’s Ghost 

Wars, New York: Penguin, 2004.

40. Ibid.

41. Brian Glyn Williams, “Mullah Omar’s Missiles,” Middle 

East Policy, Winter 2008, Vol. 15, No. 4, p. 26.

42. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Nobody Wants to Tell Us Anything,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, March 23-29, 

p. 17.

43. Colin S. Gray, Irregular Enemies and the Essence of Strategy: 

Can the American Way of War Adapt? Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, March 2006, p. vi. 

44. Ibid., pp. 9-10.

45. Steven Metz, “New Challenges and Old Concepts: Understanding 21st Century Insurgency,” Parameters, Vol. 37, No. 4, 

Winter 2007-08, pp. 20-22.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid., pp. 30-31.

48. Matthew J. Morgan, A Democracy is Born: An Insider’s Account of the Battle Against Terrorism in Afghanistan, Westport, CT: 

Praeger, 2007, p. 143.

49. Robert D. Crews and Amin Tarzi, eds., The Taliban and the 

Crisis of Afghanistan, Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2008, p. 316.

50. Zeb B. Bradford, Jr., and Frederic J. Brown, America’s 

Army: A Model for Interagency Effectiveness, Westport, CT: Praeger, 

2008, p. xiii. 

51. Anthony H. Cordesman, “Afghanistan, Iraq, and SelfInflicted Wounds,” unpublished presentation, Washington, DC: 
82

Center for Strategic and International Studies, October 2007, pp. 

3-5.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid., p. 12.

54. “New Strategy: 8 Year War,” The Observer-Reporter, December 1, 2009, p. A2.

55. Crews and Tarzi, pp. 320-321.

56. Ibid., p. 316.

57. Sikorski, p. 44; Review of Coll’s Ghost Wars.

58. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan 

After the Taliban, New York: Penguin, 2006, p. 77.

59. Morgan, p. 37.

60. Chayes, pp. 168-169.

61. Ibid., pp. 182-183.

62. Hans Bennendijk and Stuart E. Johnson, eds, Transforming for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, Washington, DC: 

National Defense University Press, 2004, pp. 4-5.

63. Ewans, p. 219.
83

CHAPTER 3

EVOLVING U.S. STRATEGIC INTERESTS, 

OPTIONS, AND RISKS

Afghanistan is doubtless the most hostile, fanatic 

country in the world today. There is no pretense of according Christians equal rights with Moslems. There 

are no banks. . . . (They) detest taxation and military 

service and welcome chaos and confusion. . . . No foreign lives can be protected and no foreign interests 

guaranteed.

Congressional testimony of Wallace Murray Smith, Chief of the State Department’s 

Division of Near Eastern Affairs, in 19301

Ignored or shunned by the United States throughout much of history, the region including Afghanistan and Pakistan now commands America’s focused 

strategic attention, encompassing within it a mix of 

vital, important, and peripheral U.S. national security 

interests. Among other major issues, these American 

regional strategic concerns include radical Islamist 

threats, potential nuclear weapons proliferation, the 

access to newly developed energy sources, a major 

flow of illegal narcotics, potential economic opportunities, and the rising challenges of China, Russia, 

Iran, and other regional powers. Once merely a global 

afterthought, this region is now one that cannot be 

safely ignored.

Nevertheless, while the United States unquestionably has clear, compelling, and vital interests in 

preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and in preventing transnational terrorist elements from staging 

their attacks from Afghanistan or Pakistan, it is not 
84

equally obvious that the United States has an important national security interest in achieving a democratic end-state in Afghanistan. In fact, the pursuit of that 

peripheral strategic interest is costly enough to potentially undermine the pursuit of other more essential 

national interests around the globe, without really 

guaranteeing anything in the long run. This skeptical 

perspective is reinforced only when one considers the 

array of nations and transnational actors whose own 

interests stand in direct opposition to this goal.

Consequently, it is difficult to justify the need for 

full-blown nation-building and counterinsurgency 

(COIN) in Afghanistan, as opposed to other strategic 

options that involve either a minimal presence, such 

as raiding suspected terrorist bases, or a mediumsized presence in the country that would remain focused primarily on counterterrorism. Both of these alternative strategic options can be framed in ways that 

protect the vital American national security interests 

in the region, while also entailing far lower costs and 

fewer corresponding risks. Likewise, in seeking to create a viable nation-state in Afghanistan, it is not even 

clear that the United States has framed its Afghan goals 

correctly, given the decline in the influence of nationstates—especially weak or failing ones—in the face of 

globalization, growing transnational movements, organized drug crime, and other modern trends. So it is 

unclear that the nation-state is even the relevant construct, or that the results of nation-building will necessarily be positive and consistent with U.S. interests.

Put more directly, success in nation-building in 

Afghanistan will not correspond automatically with 

positive Afghan political relationships in the long run, 

since there will always be an uncertainty of political 

outcome even if the United States and the North At-
85

lantic Treaty Organization (NATO) are successful in 

building some sort of democracy in Afghanistan. That 

is, it is hard to predict exactly what type of democracy would ultimately emerge in Afghanistan—with 

potential models ranging from the Western version to 

the Iranian, Pakistani, or Iraqi types—and that eventual outcome would bring with it different possibilities 

in terms of a regime that either shares or opposes U.S. 

interests. Exacerbating these strategic uncertainties, 

the United States has done a poor job until recently 

of precisely articulating its interests, leading to a situation in which America’s national security strategies 

and its strategy for Afghanistan and the region have 

often been unclear, poorly defined, and shifting over 

recent history.

A THUMBNAIL SKETCH OF PAST U.S. 

INVOLVEMENT

The history of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and 

Pakistan has been characterized by a few key themes, 

chief among them the fact that the United States has 

had little interest in the region other than engaging in 

periodic marriages of convenience when interests dictated them, much like other powers. As another recurring theme, Afghan and Pakistani leaders have shown 

a keen ability to manipulate those foreign powers and 

their shifting interests over the years, often to their 

own personal advantage. These Afghan and Pakistani 

leaders have shown a consistent willingness to shift 

allegiances quickly when circumstances favored that 

choice, and Afghanistan has also shown little inclination to fix its own problems internally over the course 

of history, since most development has come from external sources. The Pakistani Army and Inter-Services 
86

Intelligence Directorate (ISI) often pursue their own 

separate interests, aiming to protect their disproportionate influence and privileged positions within Pakistani society.

Throughout the centuries, Afghanistan has been 

largely viewed as an insignificant backwater territory.2

In the modern era, the United States had few contacts 

prior to the 1920s with either the Middle East or South 

and Central Asia.3

 Among the other major powers, the 

Germans aimed to achieve some influence in Afghanistan in the 1930s through developmental aid and engineering projects, but met with limited success.4

 U.S. 

engagement with the Middle East increased prior to 

World War II, as the American business community 

succeeded in becoming involved in Middle Eastern 

oil production, but the United States still had next to 

no contact with Afghanistan or Pakistan at that point. 

Upon achieving its independence in 1947, Pakistan 

reached out to the United States to request economic 

and military aid, but American policymakers rebuffed 

the Pakistanis after deciding that the unstable country 

could offer few real assurances in return.5

During this same post-World War II period—a 

time that featured aggressive American and Russian 

efforts at building advantageous strategic relationships elsewhere around the globe—the United States 

held Afghanistan at arm’s length, as U.S. policymakers were suspicious of Afghan motives in requesting 

aid in the late 1940s. The United States believed that 

the Afghans’ overtures were aimed mainly at achieving traction on the Pushtunistan issue, and as a result, 

the United States gave the Afghan government only 

a fraction of the aid it had requested.6

 Continuing 

this ambivalent stance, the United States had little involvement with Afghanistan over those years, includ-
87

ing rebuffing Afghan requests for arms and aid as late 

as the 1950s, during the height of the Cold War. The 

United States viewed Afghanistan as unstable, and 

thought that the country would be unlikely to mount 

any real opposition should the Soviet Union decide to 

intervene there militarily.7

In spite of the fact that the United States was then 

competing with the Soviet Union for influence in many 

other places around the world at the time, the United 

States might have still continued to ignore Pakistani 

entreaties for aid—and Afghanistan altogether. However, in 1949, India recognized Communist China and, 

in response, the United States decided to work with 

India’s Muslim enemy.8

 A few years later, in 1954, the 

United States rebuffed an Afghan request for a mutual 

security pact, after which the Afghans almost immediately turned to the Soviets for economic and security 

assistance, which the Russians willingly provided.9

The Afghans then allowed the Russians to fill this 

vacuum, but only to a certain extent, as the Afghan 

leadership saw advantages in playing off one benefactor against the other.10 In 1955, this Afghan relationship with the Soviet Union was formally approved by 

a national loya jirga, setting the stage for continuing 

Russian involvement in Afghan affairs in the years 

ahead.11

Reversing course, in the late 1950s the United States 

decided not to cede control of Afghanistan wholly to 

the Russians, embarking upon an economic development and cultural exchange program. This program 

featured educational exchanges, economic aid, and 

other development assistance, including the construction of an 11,000-foot runway in Kandahar capable of 

handling high performance aircraft—ironically now 

serving as the staging area for the major U.S. presence 
88

in the southern part of the country.12 Even so, Afghanistan developed two competing Communist Party 

factions in the 1960s, and with them came another attempt at social and cultural modernization, reforms 

which were to be rebuffed once again by the conservative Islamic mullahs and the tribes.13 The United States 

continued to provide modest developmental aid into 

the early 1960s, mostly tied to road construction and 

infrastructure development, but by the mid-1960s this 

aid had dwindled to almost nothing in light of the 

emergence of a significant Communist movement.14

As U.S. interest dwindled once again, the Communist movement gained traction through the mid1970s, and Afghanistan remained relatively calm. In 

October 1978, the now-Communist government announced major reforms, among them land redistribution, equal rights for women, language rules, and other reforms that antagonized the majority Pashtun and 

other conservative Muslim elements of society.15 The 

Afghan army deserted en masse, the tribes took up 

arms, and revolts broke out across the country. About 

100 Russian military advisers and their families were 

murdered, some having their severed heads paraded 

around Kabul and Herat on poles.16 In retaliation, the 

Soviets increased their military aid and began attacking rebel positions, committing their own major atrocities as they did so.17 By December 1979, the Soviets 

had deployed new forces to support the Communist 

government and had begun major operations.

Sensing a potential opening, the U.S. Government 

began to provide small amounts of aid to the rebelling Afghans in the summer of 1979. Having already 

lost one base of operations with close proximity to 

the Soviet Union in Iran, the United States perceived 

an opportunity to gain a foothold in Afghanistan to 
89

make up for that strategic loss.18 Furthermore, during this Afghan resistance to the Soviet invasion, the 

U.S. Government funneled its arms and aid to the 

Afghans through the Pakistani government and ISI, 

reinforcing the Pakistani intelligence services’ relationships with the tribal warlords.19 Throughout the 

years in which the United States provided support to 

the mujahedeen, Pakistan’s ISI insisted on serving as 

the middleman in the transfers, and as U.S. aid was 

funneled through Pakistani warehouses, the ISI came 

to exert much control over that process.20 The ISI also 

conducted the training of the mujahedeen in the new 

weapons systems that were supplied to them by the 

United States and others, further cementing their Afghan relationships.21

After the eventual Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of the Afghan Communist government, the 

United States was largely content to walk away from 

the situation, having achieved its near-term objectives. 

Even in the period just prior to September 11, 2001 

(9/11), the United States in general, and Joint Chiefs 

of Staff Chairman Hugh Shelton in particular, showed 

very little interest in seeking any military solutions to 

the problems posed by al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan.22 Reacting to 9/11, and as part of the initial 

military operations in Afghanistan in 2001, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) paid approximately $70 

million to warlords and local tribal leaders for support 

of U.S. operations.23 This strategic choice, along with 

the previous reliance upon the ISI for the distribution 

of aid, ultimately carried with it adverse consequences for the nation-building effort to come, regardless of 

the merits of the arguments for making the choice in 

the first place.
90

U.S. NATIONAL INTERESTS IN AFGHANISTAN 

AND THE REGION

Among students of American foreign affairs, there 

are three generally accepted core U.S. national interests: physical security, or the protection of the people 

and property of the United States from attack; economic prosperity; and the promotion of American values.

24 From these three core strategic interests, strategists derive more specific national interests, interests 

that ultimately serve as the basis for the generation 

of strategy, policy, and resource allocation priorities. 

Applying the U.S. Army War College typology of intensity, these specific national interests are typically 

categorized as being vital, important, or peripheral, depending upon their criticality and the likely impact 

that their violation would have for the three core U.S. 

interests. Vital interests are that which “will have immediate consequences for core national interests” if 

unfulfilled, while important interests will eventually 

have adverse consequences. Peripheral interests are 

those that may be desirable but are unlikely to have 

an effect if remaining unfulfilled.25

During the Cold War, primary U.S. interests in 

the region were in preventing the Soviet Union from 

achieving dominance over Afghan territory and the 

associated proximity to the oil fields and warm water 

ports of Iran and the Middle East.26 Having achieved 

those objectives relatively inexpensively with the Soviet withdrawal in 1989, the United States was content 

to leave Afghanistan alone, much as it had through 

most of the 20th century. As Afghanistan melted into 

chaos, the United States had an interest in preventing 

the Russians and Iranians from gaining control over 
91

large portions of the Afghan territory, and so the United States is generally believed to have encouraged the 

rising Taliban faction to take control of the territory, at 

least initially.27 Otherwise, the United States had little 

interest in Afghanistan and disengaged for the most 

part from Afghan affairs.

In terms of U.S. current strategic interests in Afghanistan and in South and Central Asia, without 

question the United States has a vital national interest 

in disrupting and defeating al Qaeda and in removing 

the terrorists’ Pakistani and Afghan safe havens. Protecting the United States from attacks by other radical 

Islamist elements operating in the region is another 

vital U.S. national security interest. The United States 

also has a similarly vital interest in preventing Afghanistan and Pakistan from becoming exporters of radical 

Islamic fundamentalism, in addition to ensuring that 

Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are secured and kept out 

of the hands of terrorists. The United States also has 

an important national security interest in stemming 

the flow of opium and heroin from the region. Other 

important U.S. interests include countering Iran, creating stability in Afghanistan and across the region, 

and gaining access to the recently discovered Afghan 

mineral, oil, and gas deposits. Perhaps more peripherally, other U.S. interests include promoting American 

values throughout the region, realizing an Afghan 

democracy, and developing the region’s potential for 

creating energy pipelines through Afghanistan and 

the Central Asian republics. For all of these reasons, 

Central and South Asia certainly represent a vital 

front in the global war against terrorism. 

Offering a somewhat different take on these interests, strategic thinker Stephen Blank argues that U.S. 

involvement in the region is primarily strategic in na-
92

ture, or tied to interactions with other major powers, 

rather than depending upon access to energy supplies 

or the goal of democratization, as others have suggested.28 In particular, he notes that Central Asia’s 

proximity to Russia and China gives those countries a 

strategic importance as Russia and China rise in economic and military power.29 These strategic concerns 

therefore include maintaining access to Central Asian 

airspace and territory, as well as the development of 

alternative sources of energy and the access to them. 

Blank also sees Afghanistan as a place where the United States can blunt rising Iranian influence.30

In its own analysis, the Bush administration identified three major U.S. interests in Afghanistan and 

Central Asia, including security, democracy development, and economic opportunity.31 The administration perceived a clear and vital national security interest in achieving an “open door” or “equal access” to 

Central Asian energy markets, as well as preventing a 

Russian-controlled energy cartel from emerging in the 

region.32 Proving this possibility to be no idle threat, 

then-Russian president Vladimir Putin suggested 

such a cartel to Iran and the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization in 2006.33 The United States also clearly 

has a vital interest in the stability of the Pakistani regime, since Pakistan is a nuclear power with radical 

Islamic elements inside its borders and approximately 

60 weapons by most estimates.34 Illustrating that not 

all perceive these interests in the same way, Europe 

is believed to be the source of Pakistan’s uranium enrichment technology, while China is believed to have 

provided the blueprint for Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and missile technology.35 Other analysts have 

placed the primary emphasis on other U.S. interests in 

the region, including the promotion of human rights, 
93

the equitable treatment of women, stemming the flow 

of illegal narcotics, retrieving leftover Stinger missiles 

given to the anti-Soviet forces of the 1980s, and eradicating land mines.36

Without question, each of these interests is legitimate. But while they are real, only a few can be characterized as being truly vital to U.S. national security, 

when compared with the standard of the three core 

national security interests. So merely identifying legitimate interests is not enough. Simple logic and the 

realities of resource constraints dictate that the United 

States cannot pursue any strategic option—however 

well intentioned—that furthers an important or peripheral national interest, but does so at such a cost 

that it risks undermining truly vital interests.

COMPETING NATIONAL AND 

TRANSNATIONAL INTERESTS IN THE REGION

Adding additional layers of complexity to any calculations of strategic interests and their intensity, the 

United States pursues its national security objectives 

within a dynamic context of competing national and 

transnational actors with their own interests. Setting 

aside for the moment the central challenges presented 

by the Taliban and other militant factions inside the 

Afghan borders, many of these national and transnational actors pursue their own competing interests in 

the region, with some of those competing powers perceiving a stable, secure, self-sustaining, and democratic Afghanistan as antithetical to their own concerns. 

Examining these competing actors more closely, any 

serious discussion of competing interests in the region must begin with Pakistan, given that country’s 

close historical, political, and demographic ties with 

Afghanistan.
94

Pakistan. 

Throughout its brief history, a primary national 

interest for Pakistan has been the effort to protect 

its border with India, and this overriding national 

interest drives most of Pakistan’s actions relative to 

Afghanistan. This relationship is also strained by enduring animosities between Pakistan and Afghanistan 

over the Pushtunistan issue, dating back to the origins 

of Pakistani independence in 1947.37 Pakistan continues to have a clear interest in preventing the creation 

of Pushtunistan.38 Pakistan also retains a vital interest in being able to influence events in Afghanistan, 

the original reason that Pakistan supported the Taliban in their takeover of the government in the 1990s.39

Pakistan admits to having supported and supplied 

the Taliban prior to 9/11, and numerous Pakistani 

government officials—most notably from ISI—have 

maintained close personal connections to high-ranking Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar.40 In the 

Pakistani view, a weak Afghanistan provides strategic 

depth in Pakistan’s defense against India.

Seeking to reinforce this influence in Afghanistan, 

Pakistani officials and their agents have been implicated in smuggling weapons and ammunition to the 

Taliban at least as recently as 2007.41 The Pakistani 

government, mainly through ISI, has also maintained 

a strong relationship with warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a relationship that predated the rise of the 

Taliban. From the outset, this relationship had the effect of souring relationships with both Ahmed Shah 

Masoud of the Northern Alliance and Mullah Mohammed Rabbani, the leader of Afghanistan’s pre-Taliban 

government, and those animosities persist today.42

Pakistan also has a significant national interest in se-
95

curing and controlling transit across Afghanistan as a 

commercial trade route, and the Pakistanis have been 

more than willing to work with the Taliban to that 

end in the past.43 The fact that both Afghanistan and 

Pakistan are transit countries for the Central Asian 

drug trade has added further tensions to the already 

strained Afghan-Pakistani relationship.44

As another key element, the massive migration 

of Afghan refugees to Pakistan has served as a major 

source of friction between the two countries, with the 

Afghan refugees of the western Pakistani madrassas

creating domestic unrest and overloading Pakistani 

social systems. The number of Afghan refugees in 

Pakistan as a result of the Soviet invasion was estimated at about 3 million in the 1990s, placing a huge 

burden on Pakistan’s basic social services and creating 

another major incentive for Pakistan to intervene in 

Afghan affairs.45 According to most recent estimates, 

there are still more than one million Afghan refugees 

in Pakistan today.46 Ironically, however, these refugees have also unintentionally provided the Pakistani 

government with a useful resource in that government’s pursuit of the goals of bringing order to unruly 

Afghanistan and installing an allied government.47

In any event, Pakistan has a vital interest in maintaining order and social control in its Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which, like Afghanistan 

have a large number of Pashtun tribes and subtribes, 

among them Mahsuds, Mohmands, Yusafzais, Afridis, Daurs, and Wazirs.48 As in Afghanistan, the central government wields little control over these tribal 

groups.49 Seeking to minimize tensions with this population, the Pakistani government has often treated the 

various domestic terrorist groups differently, according to their particular targets. For example, Pakistan 
96

has habitually attacked al Qaeda terrorists in order to 

avoid American disfavor, but it has allowed anti-Indian groups to operate in Kashmir while seeking accommodation with Talibanic groups and avoiding direct 

confrontation until forced to do so by the U.S. Government.50 Pakistan must also contend with an underlying 

conflict between Islamic fundamentalist elements and 

the modernist, secular elements of Pakistani society.51

Most recently, the Pakistani government has changed 

its policy toward the Kashmiri militants, resulting in 

attacks on Pakistani government assets in Kashmir 

and the rise of the Punjabi Taliban.52

Finally, the Pakistani Army also seeks to protect its 

own privileged position within Pakistani society, and 

it maintains this position in part due to a patron-client 

relationship with the Pakistani bureaucracy and a 

mutually beneficial relationship with several Islamist 

political parties.53 Pakistan’s military and ISI remain 

deeply suspicious of long-term U.S. intentions for the 

region, and they also remain concerned that Pakistan will be left with major turmoil in the FATA and 

in Afghanistan once the United States departs.54 The 

recent massive flooding has only exacerbated these 

concerns. Like the Afghans, however, the Pakistanis 

have proven to be quite adept at manipulating their 

relationships with stronger foreign powers in order to 

achieve assistance and protection over the years.

Other key players in the region include the Central 

Asian republics, which also have significant interests 

in Afghanistan. These interests include the traditional, 

ethnic, and historical ties that Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan have with their ethnic counterparts on the northern side of the Hindu Kush. These 

countries also have major economic and security interests that are affected directly by the stability, security, 
97

and criminality of Afghanistan—concerns heightened 

further by the Central Asian republics’ proximity to 

Iran, Russia, and China. 

Turkmenistan.

As a major oil and natural gas producer, Turkmenistan has an interest in gaining secure access to 

the energy market in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government sees this possibility as being in its interests as 

well.55 Turkmenistan has direct transportation infrastructure linkages to Iran, and that country has also 

benefited from Afghan instability by signing an energy pipeline agreement that would likely have gone to 

Afghanistan if the Afghan nation had been stable and 

secure.56 In general, Turkmenistan has had closer and 

more positive ties to Afghanistan than many other 

countries of the region—relations driven primarily by 

Turkmenistan’s concerns over its ethnic counterparts 

in Afghanistan and its desire to build a natural gas 

pipeline across Afghanistan to Pakistan.57 Turkmenistan is basically liberal in a religious sense, and the 

country has an interest in preventing the Taliban’s 

radical brand of Islam from making its way into the 

country, although some madrassas have already been 

established there.58

Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan also has a large ethnic connection to 

Afghanistan, though the two countries’ common border is relatively small and Uzbekistan’s transportation 

infrastructure connections to the country are limited. 

The Uzbeks have some connection with Afghan warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, and have openly sup-
98

ported him and his political goals in the past. Along 

these lines, Uzbekistan has been similar to the other 

Central Asian republics in seeking to resist Talibanic 

influence in the country.59 But while Pakistan supported the Taliban in part as a way of stabilizing its 

neighbor, the Uzbeks know that much support for 

the domestic insurgent group, Islamic Movement of 

Uzbekistan, came from Afghanistan when the Taliban 

were in control.60 Uzbekistan also has other economic 

interests tied to Afghanistan, and the country is like 

many others in desiring to reduce the drug trafficking 

that passes through the common border.

Tajikistan.

Like the other Central Asian republics, Tajikistan 

has a strong ethnic and cultural connection to Afghanistan’s Tajik minority, and in fact there are still 

Tajik refugees in Afghanistan who fled Tajikistan’s 

own civil war.61 Like its fellow Central Asian republics, Tajikistan has an interest in preventing Talibanic 

influence from making its way into the country, and 

has not supported the Taliban, whether in or out of 

power. Tajikistan has its own problems with domestic radical Islamic fundamentalist groups, evidenced 

most recently in the ambush and killing of 23 Tajik 

government troops near the Afghan border. This attack followed on the heels of a series of deadly terrorist bombings and large-scale prison escapes. The 

country also has economic interests and counterdrug 

concerns that are affected directly by Afghanistan.
99

Transnational Drug Criminals.

Transnational crime associated with opium trade 

directly and significantly affects all the states in the 

Central Asian region. The opium trade in particular 

has a significant impact on the Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan economies and their gross domestic product 

(GDP).62 Nine-tenths of the demand for Afghan opium 

comes from Europe and Russia, giving those actors an 

incentive to act, as well.63

Al Qaeda.

It is worth noting that al Qaeda, as a transnational 

radical Islamist movement, has its own interests, distinct from the Taliban who formerly hosted them. 

For example, al Qaeda is less willing to accommodate other actors, as its adherents’ primary interests 

are global rather than regional, and the movement’s 

goals are not tied to any one parcel of territory, unlike those of the Taliban.64 Before his death, Osama 

bin Laden was open about his desire to acquire a nuclear weapon, and at least since the 1990s, al Qaeda 

has been attempting to purchase nuclear materials on 

the black market.65 Bin Laden and al Qaeda invested 

in the government of the Sudan’s efforts to produce 

nerve agents, and clear evidence of the movement’s 

nuclear ambitions was found in Taliban safe houses 

after the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001.66 As 

a separate issue, and making this situation even more 

dangerous for the West, the technology for producing chemical weapons is becoming more readily accessible. And although the technology for producing 

biological weapons is still problematic for insurgent 
100

groups at present, it is expected that advances in other 

biological research and technology will make this possibility more likely in the years ahead.67

Iran.

Iran has long-held animosities toward Afghanistan, 

going back centuries to the time when Afghanistan’s 

Sunni Muslim army toppled the Persian government. 

Iran also resents the impact that Afghan drugs and the 

smuggling of other contraband have had on Iranian 

society.68 The Iranians have a historical and cultural 

aversion to the Taliban, given the movement’s Pashtun core and the longtime Pashtun dominance of the 

Hazaras and other Afghan Shiite factions.69 Although 

the evidence pertaining to any direct Iranian support 

for the Taliban is mixed, Iran clearly aims to expand 

and consolidate its influence within the country and 

hopes to influence the outcome of the COIN through 

an information operations campaign aimed at turning 

the Afghan people against the U.S. occupation.70 Various Afghan government sources have also claimed 

that the Iranians are providing arms and ammunition to other, non-Taliban insurgent factions, but the 

United States has not confirmed those claims.71 Other 

specific Iranian interests include capitalizing economically from their historical and cultural ties to Herat 

and other parts of western Afghanistan, as well as 

maintaining access to Central Asia for the purpose of 

trade.72

Some analysts have argued that Iran has a direct 

interest in keeping Afghanistan unstable in order to 

make the Iranian trade routes to the sea more secure, 

leading the Central Asian republics to continue to use 

Iranian routes in spite of them being longer and less 
101

direct.73 Others argue that these economic interests are 

trumped by the economic and social burdens imposed 

on Iran by an estimated one million Afghan refugees 

who still remain there.74 The Iranians may also believe 

that an unstable Afghanistan, one requiring a continued major American presence, will serve to dilute the 

American hard power that can be aimed at them. But 

the Iranians also clearly feel the pressure of having 

American military forces on either side of them in Iraq 

and Afghanistan.

Russia.

Russia has long had an interest in Afghanistan, 

dating back at least to the 19th century and the “Great 

Game” with Britain. Early on, the Russians’ primary 

interest in Afghanistan was in enlarging their perimeter of security, a strategy they pursued by surrounding themselves with Central Asian client states.75 They 

were also pursuing this interest, as well as the goal of 

extending Communism’s reach, when they moved to 

prop up the failing Communist regime in Afghanistan 

in the late 1970s. Once the Soviet Union broke apart, 

and with the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan, the 

Russians became very concerned about the possibility 

of the Taliban’s radically conservative brand of Islam 

being exported into those newly independent Muslim 

republics to their south.76

The natural resources and economic markets of the 

Central Asian countries also remain very important to 

Russia, so Russia has taken diplomatic, economic, and 

military steps to help maintain the stability of these 

republics and Russian access. Russia also has vital domestic interests affected there, including security and 

energy economics.77 To this end, they also aim to main-
102

tain monopolistic control over energy production in 

Central Asia, exerted through control of the pipeline 

networks in the region, enabling the Russians to pay 

less than market value for natural gas from Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan.78 The Russians 

view any move toward an open, competitive market 

for Central Asian energy as a threat to their vital interests, a stance that is antithetical to U.S. energy interests.79 Russia also views the continuing U.S. presence 

in Central Asia as a direct security threat, related to its 

fear of U.S. airstrikes from Central Asian territory or 

the Indian Ocean.80 Since the Russian military considers the United States to be its primary adversary, it 

has begun to revitalize its air defense systems with a 

potential U.S. military threat in mind.81

China.

The Central Asian countries’ close proximity to 

China has led to Chinese concerns about the possible security threats that these republics represent. 

As such, China has sought to reduce radical Islamist 

influence for domestic security reasons, while also 

seeing an interest in limiting the U.S. influence in the 

region.82 For these reasons, along with concerns about 

the destabilizing nature of the associated transitions, 

both Russia and China have supported resistance to 

American efforts at democratizing the Central Asian 

countries.83 China also convened the Shanghai Cooperation Group, later the Shanghai Cooperation 

Organization, with the specific goals of neutralizing 

Afghanistan’s “Islamist proselytizing” and “separatist 

propaganda.”84 Likewise, China has economic interests in developing trade with Afghanistan and gaining 

access to Afghan natural resources and raw materials. 
103

Therefore, with all of these interests in mind, both 

China and Russia have a compelling interest in stability in the region, regardless of the forms or character 

of the governments that can provide that stability.85

In this vein, China is well known for setting aside human rights concerns or similar considerations when 

offering to do business with various regimes. China 

also views the Central Asian region as representing 

opportunities for trade that will enhance the Chinese 

economy and its domestic economic growth.86 In sum, 

China clearly values stability over democracy.

India.

India has had a long history of economic and security interaction with Afghanistan that predates the 

creation of Pakistan.87 Given India’s strained relationship with Pakistan, India sees a potential advantage 

in poor relations continuing between Pakistan and 

Afghanistan.88 To promote this interest, India has on 

occasion promoted the Pushtunistan issue, with the 

goal of keeping that source of Pakistani-Afghan contention at the forefront of the relationship between the 

two countries.89 Not surprisingly then, India did not 

support the Taliban in their rise to power, given the 

Taliban’s close connection to Pakistan, and it has no 

desire to see the Taliban regain control of the country. 

India’s growing economy also demands additional 

energy sources, so India has another interest in gaining and maintaining access to the energy-producing 

Central Asian republics. With similar motives in 

mind, India has typically tried to act in ways that are 

complementary to Russian interests and policies in the 

region, since India depends to a fair extent on Russian 

energy products.90 As one might expect, given their 
104

respective interests, the countries of India, Pakistan, 

and Iran each offered to rebuild the Afghan army and 

police, offers the United States managed to deflect for 

its own reasons.91 Most directly, India has a clear interest in seeing the confrontation between Afghanistan 

and Pakistan continue—an interest further served by 

continuing Afghan instability and a corresponding diversion of Pakistani resources to the Afghan-Pakistan 

border. In many respects, Indian interests in Afghanistan are antithetical to U.S. interests.

Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia supported the Taliban regime with 

money and formal recognition during its existence, 

making it one of only a few countries to do so. Saudi 

Arabia has also acted to support its regional ally Pakistan, because in the Saudi view, Pakistan serves as a 

counterweight to its rival in Iran.92 The Saudis no longer openly support the Taliban, but they still see remaining interests in shaping the Talibanic movement 

and the region, especially given Osama bin Laden’s 

statements advocating violence against the Saudi 

government.93 The Saudis also have a clear interest in 

limiting the attacks of al Qaeda and other fundamentalist groups on U.S. facilities and interests for reasons 

related to their own economic interests and physical 

security.94

When these competing interests and influences are 

viewed in the aggregate, it is particularly noteworthy that the United States actually holds in common 

a number of vital interests with China, Russia, and 

other major players in Afghanistan and Central Asia. 

These common interests are especially clear in shared 

concerns about regional stability. But while these 
105

shared interests could potentially serve as a common 

ground on which the major powers could engage in 

multilateral, collective action in pursuit of their common interests, some of these same actors also stand 

in staunch opposition to the U.S. goal of creating an 

Afghan democracy. In sum, a peripheral interest may 

undermine a vital one.

U.S. STRATEGIC OPTIONS AND RISKS

The first and possibly most critical step in crafting 

strategy is the identification and prioritization of national security interests, since this problem definition 

should drive the determination of desired objectives, 

strategic options, and resource allocations. As noted 

earlier, the United States does in fact have a number of 

vital national security interests at stake in Afghanistan 

and the region surrounding it. These vital American 

national security interests include:

• The disruption and defeat of al Qaeda;

• The denial of terrorist safe havens in Pakistan 

and Afghanistan;

• The protection of the United States from attacks 

by other radical Islamist elements operating in 

the region;

• Preventing Afghanistan and Pakistan from becoming exporters of radical Islamic fundamentalism;

• Stability within the Pakistani regime and the 

region; and,

• Nuclear safety and security in Pakistan.

Of course, the United States has other important 

and peripheral interests at stake in Afghanistan and 

the region, but U.S. national strategy should neces-
106

sarily be focused first on fulfilling the vital interests, 

after which important and peripheral interests can be 

pursued when resources and circumstances permit. 

In any event, once identified, this list of vital interests 

serves as the primary basis for the generation of regional strategic objectives, or the ends to be pursued 

using available resources and capabilities, once balanced against the competing but similarly critical requirements driven by other vital American interests in 

other regions of the world. 

So, in this rational crafting of national strategy, 

the identified vital interests must be linked to potential strategic options—or ways—that can be applied to 

protect or further those interests, constrained by the 

limits on means, or the specific resources and capabilities represented within American instruments of power.95 These instruments of American power include 

diplomatic, informational, military, and economic resources and capabilities within the U.S. Government’s 

control. Of course, American decisionmakers intend 

this process to be as rational as possible, though in 

reality the process is just as often a political one. In 

any case, while the strategic ends should predominate 

in the development of national strategy, the ways in 

which those ends will be pursued must necessarily be 

constrained by the actual means available to pursue 

them. 

Noteworthy by its omission from the list of vital 

interests above is any national interest in a democratic 

Afghanistan. That is, while a stable, secure, self-sustaining, and democratic Afghanistan might reasonably be expected to help further these vital interests, 

it is not clear that the creation of a viable, democratic 

nation-state in Afghanistan is either necessary or sufficient in and of itself to protect those vital interests. 
107

Accordingly, the pursuit of any strategic option centered on the concept of creating a democratic, selfsustaining state must be balanced against the costs, 

uncertainty, and risks associated with achieving that 

ambitious and costly strategic objective. This assessment is true of any strategic option. Finally, once 

these prospective ways and means are identified, the 

strategic options must be judged against the criteria 

of feasibility, suitability, and acceptability.

96 Put another 

way, the strategic options must be judged against the 

criteria of available means, legal and ethical suitability, political feasibility, cost, risk, and the likelihood of 

success; while the ends drive the process, the ways are 

constrained by resources.

These rational linkages, however, have been conspicuously absent in the numerous debates regarding 

Afghanistan. That is, throughout the course of the U.S. 

and NATO intervention, not only has there been little 

agreement regarding the specific American interests 

at stake in the region, but there has been even less consensus related to the desirability of any one particular 

strategic option or any one strategic direction. Instead, 

a major debate has raged inside and outside the U.S. 

Government, in its essence focused on the particular 

ways and strategic methods to be pursued; this debate 

has basically devolved into a rancorous disagreement 

over whether American interests are best served by 

engaging in counterterrorism or COIN as the primary 

way forward. 

Unfortunately, for the most part, this debate has 

sidestepped any serious analysis or prioritization of 

interests, or any similarly frank consideration of the 

existence and availability of the associated agency 

capabilities and resources required to realize those 

strategic concepts in the first place. Instead, the debate 
108

has devolved into one side arguing for eliminating 

the terrorists—the primary aim of the U.S. and NATO 

operations during the Bush years—while others have 

argued for focusing on classic counterinsurgency 

techniques and nation-building objectives, among 

them population protection, the development of social institutions, and other similar tasks.97 Just as importantly, there has also been little discussion of the 

second-order implications of these strategic options 

for U.S. interests, viewed broadly. In this sense, then, 

American policymakers and their various critics have 

approached these strategic deliberations almost exactly backwards, arguing about the strategic ways before 

analyzing the vital interests and the desired ends, and 

without any serious consideration of the constraints 

imposed on those ways by the actual means available 

to operationalize them—let alone the corresponding 

risks.

Representative of this current debate, strategic 

thinker Edward Luttwak argues for abandoning nation-building and COIN in favor of raids targeting 

terrorist operations, citing what he sees as tactical victories that are strategic failures, bringing with them 

unintended adverse consequences.98 Other observers, such as former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer and 

former Afghan public finance minister Ashraf Ghani, 

offer major criticisms of the mission in Afghanistan, 

assailing what they see as a lack of strategic direction altogether, while challenging many of the U.S. 

Government’s basic assumptions underlying the mission.99 The same type of ways-centered debate took 

place during the Obama administration’s strategy review of 2009. This disjointed process was reflected in 

the eventual outcome, a strategic decision that could 

be fairly described as falling somewhere in the mushy 

middle between the two debated options.
109

Setting aside for the moment relevant questions 

about the ultimate strategic ends the coalition seeks 

to achieve, the definition of potential strategic options in Afghanistan encompasses numerous other 

operational-level variables, as well. Among them 

are the specific operational objectives, the particular 

instruments of national power and resources to be 

employed in the pursuit of those objectives, the costs 

associated with the options, the risks associated with 

their commitment, and other essential considerations. 

Viewed broadly, there are basically four prospective 

ways forward, if the problem is considered without 

regard to resource constraints or risks. These four 

strategic options include the full-blown “COIN and 

nation-building” option; a “counterterrorist presence” 

option; a “counterterrorist raiding” option; and the 

“diplomacy and aid alone” option or in effect walking 

away from the problem. Of course, recent events and 

history suggest that this last option is neither feasible 

nor sustainable now, if it ever was.

Each of the three potentially acceptable strategic 

options comes with substantial costs. To put these 

costs into perspective, in fiscal year 2010, the Obama 

administration requested $65 billion to fund operations in Afghanistan, even before adding the increased 

costs associated with the McChrystal COIN plan.100

Through the end of fiscal year 2009, the operations in 

Afghanistan and Iraq had combined to cost the United 

States more than $940 billion since their inception in 

2001, with the under-resourced mission in Afghanistan representing $223 billion of that total alone.101

Current costs amount to approximately $2 billion per 

week for the U.S. operations in the theater. Added to 

this huge sum are the other less tangible costs of these 

commitments, as well as the opportunity costs associ-
110

ated with spending these enormous sums of money in 

sustaining the major force levels required to support 

the operations. In sum, the missions in Afghanistan 

and Iraq have added significantly to the burgeoning 

U.S. national debt, while also increasing the strain on 

an already overstretched federal budget. This fiscal 

irresponsibility, made worse by the severe recession, 

continues to limit U.S. flexibility in fixing its own economic problems at home, while contributing to a crisis 

of confidence in government.

With all of these effects in mind, strategic thinker 

Andrew Bacevich argues that the world’s remaining 

superpower lacks the political, military, and economic 

resources to “support a large-scale, protracted conflict 

without . . . inflicting severe political and economic 

damage on itself.”102 The decision to commit massive 

resources to irregular warfare and nation-building has 

also severely limited the U.S. ability to apply muchneeded military, economic, and diplomatic resources 

elsewhere around the world, while entailing major 

strategic and operational risks in the process. Not surprisingly, a 2008 assessment of the U.S. military, widely reported in the press, identified military personnel 

strained by the long battlefield tours, equipment degradation due to overuse, and threats from countries 

with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as major 

sources of risk, each made worse by the operations in 

Afghanistan and Iraq. As an even more direct consequence of these strategic choices, Admiral Eric Olson, 

commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command, 

acknowledged to the Senate Armed Services Committee recently that the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq had 

significantly limited the effort to keep WMD out of the 

hands of terrorists, noting both a “decreased level of 

training” among the special operating forces as well 
111

as a broadly reduced availability of those assets for 

the mission.103

Similarly, the uncertain outcomes of these operations carry with them other sources of potential strategic and operational risk. As an example, we have 

seen the transnational terrorist elements merely relocate to the FATA when confronted with a U.S. and 

NATO presence in Afghanistan, since they even now 

brazenly attack the Pakistani Army. A related risk is 

the possibility that increasing the numbers, training, 

and weaponry of the Afghan National Security Forces 

(ANSF) could, in fact, merely reinforce the network 

of corruption that already exists in Afghanistan. That 

is, increasing the ANSF could ultimately connect 

violence, drug monies, voter manipulation, and the 

siphoning of funds to corrupt police and public officials, similar to the effects described by Enrique Desmond Arias in his work on “violent democracies” in 

Latin America.104 Put another way, a strong Afghan 

state security apparatus could actually bring with it 

unintended and adverse consequences, consequences 

that ultimately prove antithetical to U.S. national security interests in the long run.

Likewise, there are also risks associated with the 

major assumptions embedded within each of the 

strategic options, among them the somewhat shaky 

assumptions that the NATO presence will continue. 

Another assumption is that the coalition will be successful in building an ANSF of sufficient quantity and 

quality—and in a timely enough manner—to hand off 

the battle to the Afghan government within a sustainable timeframe. To date, the effort to build an Afghan 

Army has been generally successful, but the Afghan 

police continue to pose major challenges. Other major 

risks include the continuing impact of these incred-
112

ibly expensive operations on American national debt, 

as well as the unanticipated but very real impacts of 

these missions on America’s ability to respond to other emergent crises around the world for the duration 

of the Afghan mission. There are other similarly serious second-order effects of this major commitment, as 

well. 

Finally, and perhaps most prominently of all the 

risks embedded within these potential strategic ways, 

is the major uncertainty of outcome once nation-building is complete—a risk that is clearly most pronounced 

within the current COIN and nation-building option. 

That is, the United States, NATO, and other key actors 

operating in Afghanistan could spend years working 

to build a viable state and democracy in Afghanistan, only to fail to achieve results consistent with 

any Western sense of those concepts. At this point, it 

is neither clear what standard of democracy we aim 

to achieve, nor what standard of democracy is even 

feasible in Afghanistan anyway, given the challenges 

that the country represents. Some scholars argue that 

a good or better democracy must include a number 

of basic elements, including: (1) universal, adult suffrage; (2) recurring, free, competitive, and fair elections; (3) more than one serious political party; and, 

(4) alternative sources of information, as well as the 

freedom among citizens to organize, debate, and articulate preferences openly.105 It is hard to imagine this 

brand of democracy emerging in Afghanistan without 

a lengthy and costly commitment. 

On the other hand, it is not nearly as difficult to 

imagine the West creating some quasi-democratic 

Afghan state, only to watch the fledgling democracy 

fail utterly in its bid to become a self-sustaining society or in its efforts to develop a legitimate economy, 
113

while rejecting the narcotics production that currently 

serves as its only substantial economic activity. As one 

simple but telling example of this very genuine risk, 

in a sense it has been democracy that has helped to 

prevent the country from cleaning up poppy production to date. Although both President Bush and Ambassador Wood publicly supported aerial spraying as 

a means of eradicating the poppies, Afghan President 

Karzai did everything he could to avoid the spraying 

campaign, surmising correctly that serious eradication 

efforts would likely doom his prospects for reelection. In sum, a quasi-democracy could emerge in Afghanistan that remains a corrupt narco-state, or other 

alternative outcomes might include an Iranian-style 

theocratic democracy, the military-dominated Pakistani model, or even the fledgling faction-dominated 

Iraqi version. The ingrained traditions of warlordism, 

corruption, political violence, and the conservative 

Islamic distrust of democracy are also likely to have 

similar impacts on these prospects.

At the same time, it is not clear that the United 

States and NATO have even framed the problem correctly in aiming to create a viable nation-state, since 

the various criminal, terrorist, and demographic challenges are increasingly transnational in nature. In a 

sense, the effort is reminiscent of hockey great Wayne 

Gretzky’s observation that he had been successful because he skated to where the puck was going, rather 

than to where the puck had been. In aiming to build 

a viable nation-state in the face of increasing transnational threats, it is possible that the West is merely 

skating to where the puck used to be. The United States 

clearly has an interest in Afghan stability but possibly 

less so in Afghan democracy, and it is not clear that 

it will take a viable and democratic Afghan nation to 
114

protect the vital American interests in the region. If 

anything, the United States might be better served by 

focusing its nation-building effort—using all available 

instruments of American national power—on Pakistan. There is no question that the United States has a 

vital national security interest in Pakistan—Afghanistan's far larger, nuclear-armed, and strategically located neighbor to the East—and in Pakistani stability, 

especially given Pakistan’s difficult relationship with 

India. Furthermore, if done from outside its borders, 

Pakistani nation-building would come at a fraction of 

the cost of the Afghan mission.

In closing, the major commitments entailed by 

these strategic options must be balanced against other 

major and looming national security challenges that 

will arise in failed states and the developing world 

as a result of key demographic trends. These trends 

and developing concerns include rising population 

growth, increasing energy demands, global economic 

interdependency, food scarcity, fresh water scarcity, 

climate change and associated natural disasters, pandemics, and the increasing sophistication of attacks on 

global cyber- and space-based infrastructure.106 At the 

same time, former Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen has argued that the increasing 

U.S. national debt represents perhaps the most significant national security threat by itself.107 Therefore, 

as American decisionmakers formulate U.S. strategy 

in response to all of these threats, they need to have 

an honest and blunt discussion regarding the ends to 

be achieved and the means available to achieve them, 

in order to set realistic strategic goals, while selecting 

feasible, sustainable, and balanced strategic options. 

As the next section of the book will illustrate, this vision of rational and coherent strategy formulation has 
115

not characterized the process that has gotten us to this 

point in our struggle to build an Afghan nation.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 3

1. Quoted in Jeffery J. Roberts, The Origins of Conflict in Afghanistan, Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003, p. 161.

2. Stephen Tanner, Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the Fall of the Taliban, Cambridge, MA: Da Capo 

Press, 2002, p. 127.

3. Roberts, p. 133.

4. Martin Ewans, Afghanistan: A Short History of Its People and 

Politics, New York: HarperCollins Press, 2002, p. 142.

5. Roberts, p. 134.

6. Martin Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan: Studies in Asymmetric 

Warfare, London, UK: Routledge, 2005, pp. 150-151.

7. Tanner, p. 226.

8. Roberts, p. 133.

9. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 154.

10. Ibid., pp. 150-151.

11. Ibid., p. 154.

12. Ibid., pp. 156-157.

13. Tanner, p. 229.

14. Ibid., pp. 226-229. 

15. Ibid., pp. 231-232.

16. Ibid., p. 232.
116

17. Ibid.

18. Ibid., p. 234.

19. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 216.

20. Tanner, p. 255.

21. Ibid., pp. 266-267.

22. The 9/11 Commission Report, Official Government Edition, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, p. 208.

23. Tanner, p. 302.

24. J. Boone Bartholomees, Jr., ed., U.S. Army War College Guide 

to National Security Policy and Strategy, 2nd Ed., Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, June 2006, p. 388.

25. Ibid., pp. 388-392.

26. Kamal Matinuddin, The Taliban Phenomenon: Afghanistan 

1994-1997, Cambridge, UK: Oxford, 1999, p. 160.

27. Ibid., p. 161.

28. Stephen Blank, “The Strategic Importance of Central Asia: 

An American View,” Parameters, Vol. 38, No. 1, Spring 2008, p. 73.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Ibid., p. 74.

32. Ibid., p. 76.

33. Ibid., pp. 77-78.

34. Paul Kerr and Mary Beth Nikitin, “Pakistan’s Nuclear 

Weapons: Proliferation and Security Issues,” CRS Report for Congress RL34248, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 

January 14, 2008, summary.
117

35. Ibid., pp. 1-2.

36. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Current Issues and U.S. Policy, Washington, DC: CRS Report for Congress, RL30588, August 

27, 2003, pp. 25-30.

37. J. C. Griffiths, Afghanistan, New York: Praeger, 1967, p. 90. 

38. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 146.

39. Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa 

Monica, CA: Rand Corporation’s National Defense Research Institute Press, 2008, pp. 54-55.

40. Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The NeoTaliban Insurgency in Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 2007, pp. 

22-23.

41. Ibid., pp. 25-26.

42. Matinuddin, p. 125.

43. Ibid., p. 132.

44. Christopher M. Blanchard, Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. 

Policy, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, CRS 

7-5700, August 12, 2009, pp. 34-35.

45. Ibid., p. 125.

46. Larry P. Goodson, Afghanistan’s Endless War, Seattle, WA: 

University of Washington Press, 2001, p. 149.

47. The 9/11 Commission Report, Official Government Edition, pp. 

63-64.

48. Khalid Ashraf, The Tribal Peoples of West Pakistan, Peshawar, Pakistan: Peshawar University, 1962, p. 15.

49. Ibid., p. 20.
118

50. Ashley J. Tellis, “Pakistan—Conflicted Ally in the War on 

Terror,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Policy Brief #56, 

December 2007, pp. 1-2.

51. Shuja Nawaz, Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army, and the 

Wars Within, Cambridge, UK: Oxford, 2008, p. xxvii.

52. These insightful points were raised by Colonel Mike McMahon, former CJ-7 of the Combined Security Transition Command – Afghanistan (CSTC-A). See also Raheel Khan’s “Untangling the Punjabi Taliban Network” in the Combating Terrorism 

Center’s CTC Sentinel, September 3, 2010, available from www.

pashtunforums.com.

53. Ibid., p. xxviii.

54. Tellis, p. 5.

55. Ewans, Conflict in Afghanistan, p. 276.

56. Matinuddin, p. 171.

57. Robert I. Rotberg, ed., Building a New Afghanistan, Cambridge, MA: World Peace Foundation (and Brookings Institution), 

2007, p. 158.

58. Matinuddin, p. 172.

59. Ibid., pp. 172-173.

60. Rotberg, ed., p. 157.

61. Matinuddin, p. 174.

62. Rotberg, ed., pp. 156-157.

63. Ibid., p. 156.

64. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan 

After the Taliban, New York: Penguin, 2006, p. 35.
119

65. Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon, The Next Attack, New 

York: Holt, 2006, pp. 132-133.

66. Ibid.

67. Ibid., pp. 133-134.

68. Rotberg, ed., p. 157.

69. Matinuddin, pp. 150-151.

70. Giustozzi, pp. 28-29.

71. Ibid.

72. Matinuddin, pp. 147-148.

73. Ibid.

74. Ibid., pp. 148. 

75. Ibid., p. 175.

76. Ibid.

77. Blank, p. 73.

78. Ibid., p. 75.

79. Ibid.

80. Ibid., p. 81.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid., p. 83.

83. Ibid., p. 84.

84. Rotberg, ed., p. 158.

85. Blank, p. 82.
120

86. Ibid., p. 83.

87. Matinuddin, p. 178.

88. Ibid.

89. Ibid., p. 179.

90. Ibid., p. 181.

91. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: Potomac, 2008, p. 123.

92. Goodson, p. 139.

93. Matinuddin, p. 158.

94. The 9/11 Commission Report, Official Government Edition, p. 

207.

95. Bartholomees, ed., pp. 388-391.

96. Ibid.

97. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Sticker Shock,” The Washington 

Post National Weekly Edition, October 12-18, 2010, p. 12.

98. Edward Luttwak, “Dead End: Counterinsurgency Warfare as Military Malpractice,” Harper’s Magazine, February 2007, 

available from www.harpers.org/archive/2007/02/0081384.

99. Ken Silverstein, “Six Questions for Michael Scheuer on National Security,” Harper’s Magazine, August 23, 2006, available from 

harpers.org/archive/2006/08/sb-seven-michael-scheuer-1156277744; 

and Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart, Fixing Failed States: A 

Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World, Cambridge, UK: Oxford University Press, 2008.

100. Karen DeYoung, “A Puzzle for Congress,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, December 7-13, 2009, p. 19.
121

101. Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other 

GWOT Operations Since 9/11, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, RL33110, May 15, 2009, summary.

102. Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power, New York: Holt 

and Company, 2008, p. 11.

103. “Wars Hinder Hunt for WMD,” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 28, 2010, p. A2.

104. Enrique Desmond Arias and Daniel Goldstein, Violent 

Democracy in Latin America: Toward an Interdisciplinary Reconceptualization, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2010.

105. Larry Diamond and Leonardo Morlino, “The Quality of 

Democracy: An Overview,” Journal of Democracy, Vol. 15, No. 4, 

October 2004, p. 20.

106. The Joint Operating Environment (JOE) 2008, Norfolk, VA: 

U.S. Joint Forces Command, November 25, 2008, pp. 10-23.

107. Speech quoted in ExecutiveGov, August 27, 2010, available from www.executivegov.com/2010/08/mullen-national-debt-is-asecurity-threat/. 

123

PART II

DISJOINTED POLICIES AND

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES

In Afghanistan, our focus is building the capacity of 

Afghan institutions to withstand and diminish the 

threat posed by extremism, and to deliver high-impact 

economic assistance. . . . [W]e are also adapting our 

programs [to] enhance the visibility, effectiveness, and 

accountability of the institutions that impact the lives 

of Afghans the most. . . . [W]e must help the Afghan 

government provide economic opportunities [and] we 

are encouraging the Afghan government to take strong 

actions to combat corruption and improve governance 

. . . while maintaining and expanding on the important 

democratic reforms and advances in women’s rights 

that have been made since 2001.

Afghanistan and Pakistan 

Regional Stabilization Strategy, 

February 20101

The Americans may have the watches, but we have 

the time.

A common warning from Taliban operatives to Afghan villagers, quoted by Shahid Afsar, 

Chris Samples, and Thomas 

Wood in “The Taliban: An Organizational Analysis,” Military 

Review, May-June 2008. 

125

CHAPTER 4

DISJOINTED POLICIES, STRATEGIES,

AND OBJECTIVES

Disjointed = Separated at the joints; Out of joint, 

dislocated; Lacking order or coherence, disconnected.

The American Heritage Dictionary 

of the English Language3

In its essence, the formulation of strategy is supposed to be a rational and deliberative process, or one 

that first identifies vital U.S. national security interests 

and then links them to the ends, ways, and means 

needed to protect those interests. In this rational, ordered, and coherent process, critical tasks include ensuring that the strategic plans are viable and feasible, 

and that the chosen strategic methods have a solid 

probability of success. Just as importantly, strategists 

must also make certain that the United States has the 

resources and capabilities needed to carry out those 

plans. The strategic planners then ensure that the assets 

earmarked for one region of the world—or the protection of one set of vital interests—are balanced against 

the competing demands of vital requirements in other 

parts of the world, all considered within the context 

of strategic and operational risk. Put most directly, 

the United States cannot do everything everywhere, 

so the rational formulation of strategy is supposed to 

reflect carefully considered tradeoffs between the demands posed by the various threats to U.S. national 

security and the associated risks of action or inaction, 

constrained by the specific capabilities and resources 

available.
126

In the case of the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, 

the strategic reality has consistently fallen far short 

of this rational standard, whether viewed in terms 

of process or product. Instead of being characterized 

by rational deliberation, the evolving U.S. strategy 

for Afghanistan and the region has most often been 

disjointed, with the steps in the process of strategy 

formulation out of order and the strategic products 

lacking coherence, let alone any methodical linkage of 

interests, ends, ways, means, and risk. Likewise, the 

U.S. intervention in Afghanistan has featured shifting 

mission justifications and objectives over its course, 

along with overly ambitious ends and ways that have 

been largely disconnected from any real discussion of 

the specific means needed to achieve them. As a result, 

the evolving national-level U.S. and the North Atlantic 

Treaty Organization (NATO) strategy has consisted of 

unrealistic, broad-brush goals with little basis in any 

rational or comprehensive analysis of the challenges 

posed by Afghanistan, as decisionmakers outside of 

the operational theater have seemingly misread or ignored the realities of conditions on the ground.

As another aspect of this strategic disjointedness, 

and perhaps one that is not surprising given how the 

generation of strategy has unfolded, U.S. strategists 

have also consistently failed to enforce accountability 

in the form of specific forcing functions tied to realistic, tangible, achievable, and measurable objectives. 

Even more disturbing, the evidence suggests that the 

United States backed into nation-building in Afghanistan for largely political reasons, with little in the way 

of any serious analysis of the specific U.S. interests 

at stake. Likewise, the public record yields little evidence of any focused consideration of the relative importance—or intensity—of those interests, or the risks 
127

associated with the various strategic options available 

to the planners in the first place. Collectively then, the 

evidence suggests that in the planning for Afghanistan, strategy formulation occurred almost exactly 

opposite from what the rational model suggests it 

should be, with results reflected in correspondingly 

disjointed strategic products. In the case of Afghanistan, policymakers appear to have settled on the ways 

first, without any frank discussion of the vital interests 

at stake, the ends required to protect those interests, or 

the actual U.S. agency resources and capabilities available to realize them.

STRATEGY: WHAT IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE

The word strategy is tossed around often, but the 

phrase has a specific meaning. Theorist Harry Yarger 

notes that strategy is “the calculation of objectives, 

concepts, and resources within acceptable bounds of 

risk to create more favorable outcomes than might 

otherwise exist by chance or at the hands of others.”4

Yarger further notes that strategy is “a process that 

seeks to apply a degree of rationality and linearity to 

circumstances that may or may not be either, accomplishing this by expressing its logic in rational, linear 

terms—ends, ways, and means.”5

 Along the same 

lines, the Department of Defense (DoD) Joint Publication 1-02 defines strategy as “the art and science of 

developing and employing instruments of national 

power in a synchronized and integrated fashion to 

achieve theater, national, and/or multinational objectives.”6 Interests are desired end-states, linked to specific strategic objectives, or ends. Ways represent how 

the end-states will be achieved, and the means are the 

specific resources to be applied through the use of the 

instruments of national power. 
128

In rational strategy formulation, the analyst also 

scrutinizes the strategic options under consideration 

for sources of potential strategic and operational risk, 

challenging the major assumptions inherent within 

those options. Among other concerns, the strategist 

asks a variety of risk-related questions: What will 

the impact be if the major assumptions are wrong? 

What other internal or external factors could affect 

the outcome? Is there flexibility or adaptability built 

into the strategic option, in case other contingencies 

arise? How will the adversaries and the other regional 

actors react to the strategic option? Is there likely to 

be a positive net balance between intended and unintended consequences? And what role might chance or 

friction play as events unfold?7

A CHRONOLOGICAL SKETCH OF THE U.S. 

STRATEGY AND INVOLVEMENT IN 

AFGHANISTAN

Although many observers have criticized the U.S. 

Government for a lack of strategy in Afghanistan, if 

anything, there have been too many strategies, each 

disconnected from the resources needed to achieve 

them. Put another way, the problem for the United 

States in its approach to Afghanistan has not been a 

lack of guidance, but rather that the various policy 

statements and strategic guidance aimed at Afghanistan and other national security threats in recent years 

have each specified ambitious ends and ways without 

directly identifying the means to be applied to achieve 

them. In the case of Afghanistan, U.S. interests were 

never clearly or conclusively defined until recently. As 

a result, the justifications and priorities for the mission 

have shifted often over the course of the intervention. 
129

For the first several years of the mission, the strategic 

and operational objectives were often poorly defined, 

and even after they were defined more precisely, those 

objectives remained unrealistic, given the actual U.S. 

agency capabilities available to achieve them. 

As a chronological sketch of the relevant policies 

and strategic guidance, in January 2001—prior to the 

attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11)—the Bush administration published Proliferation: Threat and Response, a 

document that identified Osama Bin Laden and his 

followers as representing a serious threat to gain and 

use weapons of mass destruction (WMD). This national security document also cited South Asia, and 

in particular the tensions between Pakistan and India, 

as representing a key area of concern for proliferation and potential threats.8

 At roughly the same time 

and as a clear indicator of the Bush administration’s 

pre-war perspective on nation-building, Secretary 

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld directed that the Peace 

Keeping and Stability Operations Institute at the U.S. 

Army War College be shut down, a move he justified 

on the basis of cost-cutting.9

 In the period since 9/11, 

the United States has published more than a dozen 

other national strategies, among them strategies for 

homeland security, cyberspace security, intelligence, 

counterintelligence, victory in Iraq, WMD, pandemic 

influenza, and a host of others.10 Reflecting the lack of 

attention to Afghanistan that generally characterized 

the U.S. effort there for a number of years, only in the 

past few years has there been a stand-alone national 

strategy generated for “Afghanistan and Pakistan regional stability.”11 So there clearly has been no shortage of official national-level strategies guiding U.S. 

agency effort in the years since the attacks of 9/11, 

and each of these recent strategies has imposed new 
130

or expanded responsibilities upon various U.S. agencies without specifying the resources to be made available to meet those requirements.

Regarding Afghanistan specifically, as the United 

States contemplated a military response to al Qaeda 

and the Taliban in light of the attacks of 9/11, the early 

debate surrounded the broad, overarching goals for 

any potential retaliatory strikes. In October 2001, thenSenator Joe Biden, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, advocated an American-led nationbuilding effort as a long-term solution to the problem 

of terrorism in South and Central Asia.12 The Bush 

administration and many of its conservative supporters opposed this idea forcefully, variously citing three 

lines of thinking in their opposition: (1) the goal of 

avoiding any long-term entanglements in Afghanistan; (2) a desire to validate Rumsfeld’s streamlined 

force theories; and, (3) a basic ideological opposition 

to nation-building activities in general. Representative of this pre-war line of thinking, General Tommy 

Franks of U.S. Central Command noted early on that 

“We don’t want to repeat the Soviets’ mistakes,” and 

so the United States set remarkably small force levels 

for the early stages of the Afghan campaign.13

Once the military operations commenced, however, the rationale for the Western intervention would 

ultimately shift during the course of the war, with the 

war’s initial justification of eliminating al Qaeda and 

the Taliban regime evolving into the idea that Afghanistan merely represented one front on a broader Global War on Terror (GWOT). This shift in perspective 

would eventually bring with it a commitment to nation-building and democracy promotion.14 The roots 

of this expansion of the war toward nation-building 

can actually be found at the Bonn Conference of De-
131

cember 2001. At that conference, the European Union 

(EU) contingent emphasized the need for longer-term 

reconstruction and stabilization efforts aimed at giving the Afghan government control of the Armed and 

Security Forces in the country.15 The EU delegation 

also called for the creation of police services including 

anti-narcotics units and border police, with the twin 

goals of enabling the Afghan government to establish 

law and order and to collect taxes and customs fees as 

a source of sustaining revenue.16

Laying the groundwork for the U.S. Government’s 

own eventual shift toward nation-building, the Bonn 

Conference also established the framework for an 

interim Afghan government. The Bonn framework 

included in it the goals of writing a new Afghan Constitution by October 2003 and holding democratic elections in 2004; these goals were endorsed by the United 

Nations (UN) Security Council a few days later.17 In 

framing these goals, the conference reached back to 

Afghanistan’s last legitimate loya jirga, or national representative assembly, of 1964 to establish a basis for 

the interim government. However, the conferees also 

established a troubling precedent by accommodating 

the preferences of warlords such as Ismail Khan of 

Herat and Abdul Rashid Dostam of northern Afghanistan in their initial governmental appointments.18

Further outlining its own broad vision for the future of Afghanistan, the EU called for “the creation of 

a viable Afghan state based on democracy, rule of law 

and universal standards of human rights,” while also 

agreeing to “continue active engagement in the buildup of the national institutions related to rule of law 

and internal and external security,” and promising “a 

significant European contribution to the ISAF [International Security Assistance Force].”19 Therefore, the 
132

roots of the U.S. mission expansion to nation-building 

can be traced to the Bonn conference, which “set the 

framework for an ambitious development agenda of 

economic reconstruction, state building, and democratic governance that made it a test case for international assistance to post-conflict peacebuilding.”20 In 

sum, the conference established both the practice of 

accommodating Afghan warlords, as well as European goals for Afghanistan that the United States would 

have to oblige later in order to secure the Europeans’ 

agreement to shift ISAF mission responsibility from 

the United States to NATO. In any case, the period 

from 2001 to 2007 would see the United States gradually abandon Secretary Rumsfeld’s “light footprint” 

approach, an approach originally intended at least in 

part to avoid the Soviet mistakes of the 1980s.21

Complicating the mission further, from the beginning of the U.S. intervention there were competing visions for Afghanistan at work inside the U.S. 

Government and across its component agencies. As 

an early example of this persistent lack of coherence 

in U.S. policy and strategy, White House officials and 

U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) 

leaders differed widely in their prescriptions for Afghan reconstruction priorities in the aftermath of the 

successful military operations to remove the Taliban, 

with the White House seeking projects with an immediate impact and USAID preferring longer-term agricultural “capacity building” as the main focus.22 In 

the view of Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, from 

the start USAID director Andrew Natsios tried to focus the agency’s efforts on rebuilding Afghanistan’s 

agricultural infrastructure, but he was overruled by 

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Central Intelligence 

Agency (CIA) director George Tenet, both of whom 
133

wanted the focus of U.S. resources to be placed on the 

hunt for bin Laden and in support of warlords acting 

favorably toward the United States.23 So even as the 

Taliban were still being routed and as many others 

fled to Pakistan to seek sanctuary there, U.S. officials 

could not agree upon a common vision for the endstate of the operation. Furthermore, the remarkably 

low U.S. force levels, as well as the unreliable nature 

of the Afghan militiamen employed by the CIA to 

augment those meager forces, allowed the Taliban to 

melt away into the countryside to fight another day, 

much as their counterparts from earlier eras in Afghan 

history had done in the face of superior foreign forces. 

In January 2002, Afghanistan’s newly appointed 

interim President, Hamid Karzai, visited Washington, 

taking full advantage of the opportunity to request 

a larger international force to “extend his authority 

beyond Kabul.”24 The following month, Secretary of 

State Colin Powell formally backed Karzai’s request, 

but President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard 

Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld all opposed the idea, and it was rejected.25 A few months 

later in April, President Bush promised the Afghans a 

large American-led reconstruction effort “in the best 

traditions of George Marshall,” even as the administration rebuffed USAID’s specific budget request for 

about $150 million in increased Afghan reconstruction 

aid.26 Furthermore, in this same year Rumsfeld went 

public with his disagreements with the State Department regarding NATO’s role in ISAF, further demonstrating a lack of message discipline and coherence in 

the national strategic direction exercised in Afghanistan.27 Against this backdrop, in June, the Afghans 

convened a national loya jirga, which selected a new 

government to run Afghanistan, to be headed by Ha-
134

mid Karzai until a new constitution was approved in 

October 2003 and national elections were held in June 

2004.28

Published 1 year after 9/11, the National Security 

Strategy of 2002 was squarely focused on counterterrorism and the prevention of the proliferation of 

WMD. Foreshadowing the invasion of Iraq and espousing a proactive, offensive-minded approach to 

these challenges, the strategy focused on attacking the 

terrorists wherever they were, while working to deny 

them safe havens, financing, and state-sponsored support.29 In December 2002, the Bush administration also 

published The National Strategy to Combat Weapons of 

Mass Destruction, a document that outlined the basic 

goals for counterproliferation, nonproliferation, and 

consequence management, as well as describing in 

broad fashion that “U.S. agencies must possess the full 

range of operational capabilities to counter the threat 

and use of WMD by states and terrorists against the 

United States.”30 Typical of each of the recent national 

strategies, these two documents are long on rhetoric 

but offer little in the way of specific goals and objectives or any delineation of the resources and agency 

capabilities earmarked to achieve them.

In December 2002, the U.S. Congress passed the 

Afghanistan Freedom Support Act, legislation that 

authorized increased democracy development assistance in the form of economic and military aid to 

Afghanistan.31 This act also strongly encouraged the 

President to designate a coordinator for Afghanistan 

reconstruction activities in the State Department. This 

new coordinator would carry out four primary responsibilities: (1) designing an overall reconstruction strategy for Afghanistan; (2) ensuring that interagency coordination occurred; (3) coordinating assistance with 
135

other countries and intergovernmental organizations; 

and, (4) ensuring proper management and oversight 

of agencies responsible for assistance programs.32 In 

response, President Bush declined to act at all on the 

congressional call for an interagency coordinator for 

reconstruction. Among other indicators, this choice 

clearly reflected the Bush Administration’s strategic 

priorities for Afghanistan at that point, as well as the 

respective levels of influence exercised by the Secretaries of State and Defense during this phase of the 

operations.

In March 2003, the United States went to war in 

Iraq, and the impact of the shift in focus and resources from Afghanistan to operations in Iraq cannot be 

overstated. Under-resourced from the beginning, the 

campaign in Afghanistan now fell to a distant second 

place in terms of both military and civilian agency emphasis. For Afghanistan in 2003, the stated focus of the 

American-led effort at the beginning of the year was 

toward expanding the influence of the Afghan central 

government, supporting ISAF, and “setting up regional enclaves to create secure conditions for reconstruction.”33 On May 1, 2003, in an announcement that 

received far less attention than President Bush’s Iraqifocused counterpart, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld 

announced that the American and Afghan governments were declaring that major combat operations 

had ended and that the focus of the U.S. forces would 

shift to “stabilization.”34 This declaration came only 

hours before President Bush would make a similar announcement on the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln regarding Iraq.35 However, even as the U.S. and 

Afghan governments declared major hostilities to be 

over, the spring of 2003 saw growing numbers of Taliban return to southern and eastern Afghanistan from 
136

Pakistan. These returning Taliban first drew attention 

to themselves by killing soft target international aid 

workers, with the goals of announcing their presence 

and impeding reconstruction activities. 

At about the same time in 2003, the DoD began 

to recognize that there was a clear lack of progress in 

Afghanistan. In response to this recognition, the DoD 

drafted a political-military strategy for the country, 

but the DoD plan did not include reconstruction in 

its design.36 Reflecting the already strained relations 

between the major agencies operating in the Afghan 

theater and the general lack of any effective interagency coordination of effort, the DoD strategy was vetted 

by the National Security Council and approved by the 

President in June 2003, even while the State Department and USAID were still working independently 

on their own plan to expand and expedite Afghan reconstruction.37 In the end, the competing vision articulated in the State-USAID plan would ultimately serve 

as the primary basis for the “Accelerating Success in 

Afghanistan Initiative,”announced in September 2003 

and aimed at being implemented prior to the Afghan 

presidential elections scheduled for June 2004.38

Soon after the United States announced the end 

of major combat operations in Afghanistan, Afghan 

President Karzai threatened to resign, saying that his 

government was out of money.39 Shortly thereafter in 

the summer, the Bush administration approved an 

increase in forces to oppose the growing new Taliban threat, and in November 2003, Zalmay Khalilzad 

agreed to serve as ambassador on the condition that 

he be given access to a major infusion of economic 

aid, a condition which the Bush administration met.40

In spite of the announcement that major combat operations had concluded, in 2003, the United States 
137

commenced Operations MOUNTAIN VIPER, AVALANCHE, and MOUNTAIN STORM, each aimed at 

defeating the remnants of al Qaeda and the Taliban 

leadership, as the U.S. presence remained focused 

primarily on counterterrorism.41 At the same time, 

the United States was working at building an Afghan 

army, having provided the Afghans with $815 million 

in aid toward that goal in Fiscal Year (FY) 2002, a figure that would increase to $1.8 billion in FY2003.42 As 

2003 came to a close, some observers also argued that 

the U.S. decision to invade Iraq in 2003 had brought 

with it the unintended and adverse consequence of 

casting the War on Terrorism as a broader struggle 

of the West against Islam, thus providing the Taliban 

and other militant factions within Afghanistan with 

increasing opportunities to gain fighters and other 

sources of support.43

By early 2004, the U.S. presence in Afghanistan 

had increased to 20,000 troops in support of Operation MOUNTAIN VIPER and the other kinetic operations, an increase that was accompanied by little 

public comment, although it represented a doubling 

of U.S. forces in spite of the concurrent demands of 

Iraq.44 In January, the Afghan leadership had agreed 

to a new Constitution, but as the U.S. Government’s 

military and other agency resources became increasingly concentrated on Iraq, the United States sought 

to shift the primary responsibility for Afghanistan to 

NATO to free additional resources for the Iraqi operations. ISAF’s responsibility was gradually expanded 

in territory and mission scope beginning in 2004, 

and as part of this expansion, Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) were initiated in some parts of the 

country. As a result of this shift of responsibility to 

NATO, the mission also took on the added baggage 
138

of NATO’s solvency and viability. Along these lines, 

some observers have argued that NATO member 

countries viewed their acquiescence as an opportunity for those countries to contribute militarily to the 

U.S. efforts without getting involved in Iraq, but the 

numerous caveats placed on these commitments have 

severely limited the practical impact of their contributions anyway.45

As the White House ramped up for the President’s 

reelection campaign, the Bush administration hoped 

to demonstrate progress in the two wars during an 

election year. Since Iraq was going poorly, some in 

the administration felt that it would be easier to demonstrate progress in Afghanistan in spite of its deteriorating security situation.46 At the same time, the 

international donor community was pushing for state 

building and development in Afghanistan, and as a result, the Bush administration decided that it could use 

the upcoming Afghan elections to demonstrate tangible progress “if the mission were recast toward [the] 

state-building and ‘peacebuilding’ agendas that much 

of the international community embraced.”47 Installed 

as ambassador in the fall of 2003, Zalmay Khalilzad 

actively promoted this same nation-building agenda, 

and he was given $1.2 billion in aid to use toward that 

purpose.48 To support the Afghan elections in 2004, 

about 2,000 additional Marines were deployed to Afghanistan, and the elections generally went off without major disruption. However, some analysts have 

argued that the impact of this expanded U.S. military 

footprint was itself partly responsible for the growing 

strength and breadth of the insurgency, which really 

began to grow in 2005.49

Even as the Afghan security situation began to 

deteriorate further, some observers asserted that the 
139

political demands of elections in Afghanistan and the 

United States were really behind the eventual troop increases. Specifically, it was argued that three political 

dynamics had contributed directly to the incremental 

troop increases and the heightened counterterrorism 

campaign in Afghanistan, among them: (1) a shift in 

Iraq from the claim of “mission accomplished” to a 

realization that the war would be lengthy and difficult; (2) the fact that Osama bin Laden remained at 

large; and, (3) the increasingly effective Democratic 

criticisms of the Bush administration for its “neglect 

of the primary front in the war on terror.”50 At this 

point, however, the main U.S. effort on the ground remained focused on eliminating the al Qaeda terrorists, 

the Taliban militiamen, and their leaders, rather than 

on nation-building. In October, President Karzai won 

the presidential election by a wide margin, and President Bush won his own reelection shortly afterward 

in November. 

As the situation in Iraq became even bleaker, the 

administration’s attention became squarely focused 

on that theater of operations at the expense of Afghanistan. In June 2005, the talented and experienced 

Ambassador Khalilzad—a native Afghan—departed 

Afghanistan at the President’s request to become Ambassador to Iraq. Reflecting the lack of attention that 

Afghan affairs were receiving at the time, the major 

policy change under consideration was a September 

debate over whether or not to withdraw 3,000 troops 

from Afghanistan and divert them to Iraq, a figure 

representing about 20 percent of the total U.S. force 

present in Afghanistan at the time.51 September also 

saw the Afghan parliamentary elections take place, 

elections that went off largely without controversy, 

but also without receiving much attention. This pre-
140

occupation with Iraq also took the form of diverting 

other non-DoD resources from Afghanistan, undermining a reconstruction effort that was already poorly 

resourced and exacerbating other major challenges in 

the country.

At the broader national strategic level, in February 

2006, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff published The National Military Strategic Plan for the War on 

Terrorism, a document that offers a broadly drawn outline of the ends, ways, and means to be applied in the 

GWOT. Similar to other recent strategies in this sense, 

there is little in the way of specifics and no suggestion 

of how the inputs and means of the various agencies 

would be coordinated and integrated to achieve the 

strategy’s broadly worded ends.52 Of particular note, 

the document’s Annex V: Interagency Coordination consists of only two brief paragraphs, and offers little 

other than a vague call for “an end to unilateral ‘stove 

piping’ of actions within departments, agencies, and 

staff directorates.”53

A month later in March, the Bush administration 

published The National Security Strategy (NSS) of the 

United States of America of 2006, a watershed document 

in the sense that it formally reflected the expansion of 

the Afghan mission to nation-building. Citing a variety of successes in Afghanistan, including progress in 

the fight with al Qaeda and two elections having been 

held without major incident, the strategy makes an 

extended case in favor of democracy promotion as the 

way forward for U.S. national security.54 In the document’s prescribed model of democracy, the 2006 NSS 

delineates between religious and civil society—an 

approach at odds with the realities of Islamic culture 

and antithetical to Islamic norms and structures—and 

offers no specific ways or associated means for achiev-
141

ing those incredibly ambitious and possibly infeasible 

ends. 

Furthermore, the 2006 NSS clearly identifies a 

Western model as the version of democracy to be promoted—as it includes references to “human rights,” 

“freedom of religion,” “submitting to the will of the 

people,” “independent and impartial systems of justice,” “limit[ing] the reach of government,” protecting 

“religious communities,” and the promotion of “independent business” and “a market economy.”55 That 

same spring, the new or “neo” Taliban insurgents 

launched their largest offensive since 2001, while in 

May, a fatal traffic accident in Kabul caused by a U.S. 

convoy touched off major riots in the city.56 Expanding the scope of U.S. effort significantly, early in 2006, 

President Bush requested $10.6 billion in aid for Afghanistan for FY2007, even as American airstrikes 

were blamed for civilian casualties that increased tensions with the Afghan population, and as the Taliban 

expanded their use of suicide attacks and roadside 

bombings.57

Adding to this national strategic mix, in September 

2006, the administration published a National Strategy 

for Combating Terrorism, another in a series of strategic 

documents that offers little in the way of specific means 

to be applied to the various ends described within 

it. Like the other strategies, the Combating Terrorism

document advocates democracy promotion and other 

physical ways in which terrorism will be combated, 

but identifies few specific agency capabilities to be 

used toward those goals.58 The document is also noteworthy in its clear emphasis on Iraq to the exclusion 

of Afghanistan, as even the terrorist havens cited in 

the document make reference to Iraq, with little mention of Afghanistan or Pakistan.59 During a visit to the 
142

White House by Pakistani President Musharraf that 

same month, President Bush noted that when Musharraf “looks me in the eye” and says there “won’t be a 

Taliban and there won’t be an al Qaeda (in Pakistan), I 

believe him.”60 Also in September 2006, NATO forces 

battled hundreds of Taliban near Kandahar, eventually pushing them out of the area. In October, NATO 

formally assumed responsibility for the security of all 

of Afghanistan. 

Appointed in December 2006, new Defense Secretary Robert Gates initially focused on Iraq, but by 

the end of 2007, he had presented a new integrated 

strategy for Afghanistan, aiming to pull together 

the reconstruction, development, counterterrorism, 

and counternarcotics activities.61 This new approach 

would require increased troop levels, and Secretary 

Gates also encouraged other key agencies to increase 

their commitments. Gates also challenged the NATO 

countries to increase their commitments, but this request was a tough sell for most of them, given their 

domestic political realities. As the security situation in 

Afghanistan deteriorated further in 2007, there were 

publicly aired disagreements over counternarcotics 

policy, with Ambassador William Wood and President Bush pushing for aerial spraying on one side and 

Defense Secretary Gates opposing that method, on the 

other.62 For his own part, President Karzai opposed 

aerial spraying or any other serious eradication efforts 

altogether, out of concerns that any real efforts to undermine poppy production would lead to his defeat in 

the next presidential election. 

As the situation worsened and as the neo-Taliban 

elements continued to grow in strength and sophistication, the Bush administration began to sour on Pakistani President Musharraf. In July 2007, White House 
143

Homeland Security director Frances Fragos Townsend 

asserted that Musharraf’s anti-terrorism plan hadn’t 

“worked for Pakistan,” and she further claimed that 

al Qaeda had established safe havens inside of Pakistan.63 That November, the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan (CSTC-A) and ISAF 

initiated a nation-wide reform of the Afghan National 

Police, as a means of projecting Afghan governmental authority and reducing the widespread corruption 

and incompetence in the police force. As the levels of 

violence in Iraq diminished toward the end of 2007, 

the administration came under increasing pressure to 

step up its efforts in Afghanistan, where the security 

situation was continuing to deteriorate.

In January 2008, U.S. decisionmakers began to 

consider deploying additional troops to bolster Afghan security, but NATO partner governments were 

resistant, and President Bush declined to act on troop 

requests from the theater commanders during the 

presidential election year. Against this challenging 

backdrop, it is somewhat ironic that it was in May 

2008 that the State Department published the FY2010 

Mission Strategic Plan for Afghanistan, U.S. Mission to 

Afghanistan, the authoritative strategic guidance for 

all civilian U.S. agencies operating in Afghanistan.64

While this document provides fairly detailed goal 

descriptions and metrics for measuring the progress 

toward achieving them, the document remains very 

vague regarding the specific resources or capabilities 

to be applied to achieve those objectives. Furthermore, 

the President had never clearly established State’s primacy over the DoD in Afghanistan, and as a result the 

document could not mandate DoD cooperation.65 So 

as President Bush’s tenure wound down in 2008, the 

Afghan effort suffered from shortages in army and 
144

police trainers, insufficient forces to enforce security 

across the countryside, and a wholesale lack of the civilian agency personnel and other specialists needed 

to carry out both the ambitious and broad goals of the

The National Security Strategy of 2006, as well as the 

more specific objectives of 2008’s Mission Strategic Plan 

for Afghanistan.

After he took office in 2009, President Barack 

Obama’s first major initiative linked to Afghanistan 

was his February decision to expand the use of drone 

aircraft-initiated missile strikes inside of Pakistan, 

with the goal of attacking the network of militants 

seeking to bring down the Pakistani government.66

These attacks represented a significant expansion of 

the use of force in the region and were aimed at Pakistani militant groups that had “played less of a direct 

role in attacks on American troops.”67 The second of 

two attacks at the time targeted a particular militant 

leader, Baitullah Mehsud, but without success. Soon 

afterward, in March, President Obama announced a 

“comprehensive, new strategy for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan,” the result of a policy review led by advisor Bruce Reidel.68 This new strategy identified a 

“clear and focused goal” at its center, specifically to 

“disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan 

and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”69 In the same address, the 

President announced the deployment of 17,000 troops 

who would “take the fight to the Taliban in the south 

and the east” as part of a long-standing request for 

forces, a well as a “shift of emphasis” to “training and 

increasing the size of the Afghan security forces.”70

While not mentioning particulars, the President 

also noted that, “This push must be joined by a dra-
145

matic increase in our civilian effort,” citing widespread corruption, criminality, and the effects of the 

drug trade.71 In addition to the new combat forces and 

army and police trainers, the President’s new strategy 

also included more aid and the deployment of hundreds of civilian experts to Afghanistan. Identifying a 

compelling national interest in combating the terrorist 

elements, the President stated that “the safety of the 

world is at stake,” given al Qaeda’s continued presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan.72 With this shift, the 

President asserted that the strategy would refocus the 

U.S. efforts on a “clear and focused goal: to disrupt, 

dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future.”73 The civilian surge that was part 

of the March 27 announcement would roughly double 

the number of civilian experts deployed to 900.74

In May 2009, President Obama and Secretary Gates 

replaced ISAF commander General David McKiernan 

with General Stanley McChrystal, as Secretary Gates 

noted that General McKiernan had asked for more 

troops but offered no new strategy.75 In July, National 

Security Adviser James L. Jones stated that the Obama 

administration intended to hold troop levels constant 

in Afghanistan for the time being, but he also noted 

that the administration wanted to focus effort on the 

goals of increasing economic development, improving effective governance, and raising the engagement 

of Afghans in the conflict.76 The FY2009 supplemental appropriations law had required the administration to develop better metrics to evaluate progress in 

Afghanistan, among them, “the performance and legitimacy of the Afghan government and its efforts to 

curb official corruption.”77 Later in August, the White 

House announced the establishment of about 50 new 
146

Afghanistan benchmarks—measures of progress that 

were to be more detailed and more specific than the 

broad-brush approach that had been used without 

success in Iraq. Most noteworthy for the fact that they 

were about 8 years in the making, these benchmarks 

were also intended to look “more broadly, measuring 

not only what gets done but how well and on what 

schedule.”78 In another developing trend, the administration began to look to Iraq for lessons learned and 

techniques that could be applied in Afghanistan, in 

spite of the dramatic differences between the two situations and the unresolved outcome in Iraq. 

Upon taking command of the ISAF forces, General McChrystal had initiated his own broad review 

of the situation and the strategy in Afghanistan. After 

completing his internal assessment, he issued a public 

call for a classic counterinsurgency in his Initial Assessment of conditions and strategy for Afghanistan 

of August 30, 2009.79 Noting that the situation “defies simple logic or quick fixes,” he further asserted, 

“Our strategy cannot be focused on seizing terrain 

or destroying insurgent forces; our objective must be 

the population.” 80 As a positive corresponding step, 

the senior in-country leaders from State and the DoD 

also jointly published the first Integrated Civil-Military 

Campaign Plan in August of 2009. The document was 

noteworthy for a variety of reasons, but not the least 

of which was the fact that it had taken nearly 8 years 

of operations in Afghanistan for an integrated, interagency document of this type to emerge—and then 

only because the current incumbents at State and the 

DoD had agreed to produce it.

Shortly afterward, in September, General 

McChrystal’s confidential assessment of the war in 

Afghanistan was leaked, in which he contended that 
147

without receiving more forces the war “will likely result in failure,” according to a copy obtained by The 

Washington Post.

81 An intense debate then began within the administration, with Vice President Joe Biden—

ironically the former champion of nation-building—

spearheading the White House faction pushing for 

an increased speed in the development of the Afghan 

security forces and attacks on Pakistani-based terrorists using drones, with a concurrent de-emphasis of 

the nation-building objectives. Participants in the deliberations identified Defense Secretary Gates as a primary advocate for General McChrystal’s more robust 

counterinsurgency plan.82

For all of the serious internal debate and discussion, however, the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan remained largely unchanged after the Obama administration’s 3-month policy review. General McChrystal 

was given most of what he had advocated publicly, as 

the modified counterinsurgency and nation-building 

strategy was approved, with the caveat that the United 

States would begin a conditions-driven withdrawal in 

2011. This caveat once again called into question the 

coherence of the strategy, given the stated ends and 

ways. Immediately, however, even that public assertion of a planned withdrawal was called into question 

as Defense Secretary Gates, Secretary of State Hilary 

Clinton, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral 

Michael Mullen each sought to minimize expectations 

for the transfer—with Secretary Gates calling the date 

the “beginning of a process” that would take place “in 

uncontested areas” and making it dependent upon the 

development of Afghan security forces.83 Ultimately, 

this publicly debated policy evolved into the current 

plan, which calls for a conditions-based transfer of 

authority to the Afghan government in 2014 to accom-
148

pany the initiation of the withdrawal of surge forces, 

which began in July 2011.

On the heels of this public demonstration of discord 

within the Obama administration, in February 2010, 

the State Department’s Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan issued an updated 

Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy. 

Three months later, in May, the White House issued 

its own National Security Strategy of the United States of 

America to supersede the Bush-era guidance. In a major speech at West Point just prior to issuing this new 

guidance, President Obama stated that, “The burdens 

of this century cannot fall on our Soldiers alone,” as 

he directed that defense and diplomacy must go hand 

in hand the conduct of U.S. foreign policy.84 Having 

completed his internal review at about the same time, 

ISAF Commanding General McChrystal implemented 

the full counterinsurgency plan, as he issued the corresponding ISAF Campaign Strategy that same May. 

The balance of 2010 was most noteworthy for 

leadership changes and public bickering among a 

variety of U.S. officials. General David Petraeus succeeded General McChrystal as ISAF commander after 

McChrystal’s impolitic comments surfaced in a Rolling Stone article, and other uniformed leaders such as 

Marine Corps General James Conway offered public 

second-guessing of President Obama’s decision to announce July 2011 as a date for initial troop withdrawals, criticisms echoed by President Karzai. In August, 

General Petraeus declared the Afghan war strategy 

to be “fundamentally sound,” and in September the 

President signaled that the strategy would remain intact moving forward.85
149

FIVE KEY STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS

Among the various sources of formal guidance 

provided to U.S. departments and agencies concerned 

with national security and the operations in Afghanistan, there are five especially important documents 

that convey the leadership’s strategy and intentions. 

Unintentionally, these five documents also provide a 

solid sense of the disjointed nature of American strategic planning, including a lack of true interagency 

coordination and the comparative advantages in planning capabilities enjoyed by the DoD. Considered in 

the order of their publication, the first three of these 

documents include the Bush administration’s National 

Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of 2006, the 

State Department’s FY2010 Mission Strategic Plan for 

Afghanistan of 2008, and the Afghanistan and Pakistan 

Regional Stabilization Strategy of 2010. The last two 

of the five key documents were published about the 

same time in May 2010, and include the Obama administration’s NSS and the ISAF Campaign Strategy. A 

close examination of these five important documents 

yields a number of key insights into the state of American strategic planning and the causes of our struggles 

in Afghanistan.

The first of these key documents is the NSS of 2006. 

National security strategies are public statements that 

outline a President’s vision for national security while 

setting the strategic priorities for U.S. departments 

and agencies. Published by the Bush administration, 

the centerpiece of this vision was “democracy promotion.” Whether that ideological choice represented 

after-the-fact rationalization or forward-thinking 

guidance when it was written, the 2006 NSS succeeds 

as inspiring rhetoric and as a statement of ideological 
150

preference, but the document fails substantively as a 

working strategic framework for establishing tangible 

and feasible ends, ways, and means, or in assessing 

national security risks. Furthermore, while democracy 

promotion itself may potentially represent a viable 

and desirable component of U.S. foreign policy strategy when viewed from a longer-term perspective, the 

military-heavy application of this approach represented in the 2006 NSS clearly compromised a variety of 

U.S. national interests in the short run. Put directly, by 

openly and aggressively adopting democracy promotion as the central feature of our foreign policy, the 

United States accepted unnecessary risks and costs, simultaneously setting unachievable short-term goals, 

while predisposing some nations to view American 

intentions with concern, if not outright distrust. 

Expanding on this idea, the heavy-handed, military-centered approach to democracy promotion that 

was embedded in the 2006 NSS reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of a variety of relevant cultural, 

political, and economic characteristics of Islam, the 

South and Central Asian region, and the individual 

countries within it. At the same time, if democracy 

promotion is pursued using the right balance of soft 

power elements of national power and with reasonable expectations, it could eventually realize longerterm advantages that would outweigh its various 

potential disadvantages. However, as long as that vision remains detached from a serious consideration of 

the specific resources and capabilities—and duration 

of commitment—needed to realize it, these goals remain overly ambitious and unrealistic. From a policy 

standpoint, the 2006 NSS served to formalize the mission creep in Afghanistan from defeating al Qaeda to 

nation-building, but the document still fell well short 

of what was needed for it to function as strategy.
151

In a sense, the NSS represents the macro view of 

American national strategy, as some administrations 

use it to outline their vision for strategic intent while 

others use it to consolidate changes already made or 

to “create consensus within the executive and to signal 

changes to Congress and foreign leaders.”86 In either 

case, the 2006 NSS never once gets into the specific 

components of strategy in the few places that it mentions the mission in Afghanistan. The document also 

never offers any policy prescriptions or any real leader 

emphasis tied to the obvious interagency challenges 

that were getting in the way of operational success in 

Afghanistan and in other national security activities. 

Instead, it stays well “above the fray,” offering broad 

rhetoric such as its celebration of the “extraordinary 

progress in the expansion of freedom, democracy, 

and human dignity” since 2002 and its lofty but undefined goals of “ending tyranny” and “advancing freedom.”87 Noteworthy mainly for its primary focus on 

Iraq and its very limited references to Afghanistan, the 

document also speaks briefly about consolidating “the 

successes already won” and the establishment of the 

Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, optimistically noting that the office “draws 

on all agencies of the government” while integrating 

“its activities with our military’s efforts.”88

While a broad-brush approach to Afghanistan in 

the macro 2006 NSS might be understandable to a 

certain extent, it is much harder to get past the lack 

of details in the country-specific micro guidance to 

nonmilitary agencies operating in Afghanistan. The 

second of these five key strategic documents for Afghanistan is a State Department document known as 

the Mission Strategic Plan (MSP) published in 2008. The 

MSP is the document that lays out the specific mission 
152

guidance to civilian agencies for the execution of their 

various operations. Accordingly, MSPs are intended 

to be country-specific action plans that provide the 

micro view, or a blueprint of the specific objectives, 

metrics, and priorities for all civilian agencies and operators within that country. Once again, however, the 

2008 MSP for Afghanistan falls well short as strategic 

guidance, since it identifies lofty and ambitious goals 

without actually linking those goals to existing or projected U.S. agency capabilities or the resources needed 

to achieve them.

In much the same way, the 2008 Afghanistan MSP 

also falls short from an interagency perspective. The 

document optimistically identifies partners among the 

various U.S. agencies operating in Afghanistan, but it 

contains no details regarding specific requirements or 

mechanisms for coordination and specifies no jurisdictional or supporting relationships. Moreover, the 

document is almost completely devoid of details of 

the “how to” of its goals, since it makes no mention 

of the numerous supporting tasks and related objectives required to achieve meaningful, substantive 

improvements in the goal areas. It is also noteworthy 

that within the headquarters where I operated in Afghanistan, none of the actors from the Department 

of State, USAID, or the DoD ever made mention of 

this document during my time in theater, and to my 

knowledge, nobody in the military headquarters was 

aware of the existence of the document or its contents. 

Even more significantly, there was clearly no common 

understanding of the specific objectives that each U.S. 

agency was supposed to be pursuing in support of 

the MSP goals. As a result, most agencies continued 

to work in the directions they were used to going in, 

pursuing goals that they defined for themselves and 
153

answering primarily to their higher stateside headquarters.

As another basic indicator of this strategic and interagency disjointedness, Anthony Cordesman of the 

Center for Strategic and International Studies identified a pervasive lack of meaningful metrics to track 

progress in Afghanistan and Pakistan in his careful 

analysis of 2007. Cordesman noted that ISAF and the 

U.S. Government had been successful in nearly every 

tactical military engagement, and that the other U.S. 

agencies commonly cited their own successes by applying their own particular measures of their efforts 

in Afghanistan. Conversely, however, he also observed that there was no clear and objective sense of 

the direction the overall effort was heading.89 Among 

other measures absent from the discussion, Cordesman’s missing metrics included evaluations of overall 

progress, appraisals of economic performance, assessments of force development, and measures of gains 

in agency capacity, the rule of law, counternarcotics, 

and reconstruction.90 This lack of strategic clarity and 

coherence, coupled with a concurrent failure to make 

honest, hard, resource-constrained choices, only combined to undermine the prospects for mission success 

and the broader protection of U.S. interests.

Published in February 2010 and endorsed formally 

by Defense Secretary Gates, the State Department’s 

Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy

offers much more detail in its guidance for the civilian agencies operating in the region. In this strategic 

guidance, Secretary of State Clinton pointedly asserts 

that the strategy’s programs are “far from an exercise 

in nation-building,” going on to claim that the strategy is instead aimed at achieving “realistic progress 

in critical areas.”91 Nevertheless, this strategic guid-
154

ance looks suspiciously like what we would imagine 

nation-building to be, if there were any generally accepted definition of the term. For example, the document includes major sections on:

• “Rebuilding Afghanistan’s Agriculture Sector”;

• “Strengthening Afghan Governance”;

• “Enhancing Afghan Rule of Law”;

• “Supporting Afghan-Led Reintegration”;

• “Combating the Afghan Narcotics Trade”;

• “Building an Economic Foundation for Afghanistan’s Future”;

• “Advancing the Rights of Afghan Women and 

Girls.”92

So besides reinforcing the notion that we all toss 

around the term “nation-building” without ever defining it, State’s strategic guidance for the civilian agencies operating in Afghanistan clearly aims to create a 

viable Afghan partner where none existed before. 

To this end, the Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional 

Stabilization Strategy clearly represents a major step 

forward for State in its strategic planning capabilities. For each of the major goals outlined in the document, which includes those listed above and a variety 

of others for the region, the strategy offers specific 

budgetary resource requirements, a description of 

the Key Initiatives recently undertaken in pursuit of 

those goals, and the Milestones or achievements realized in the recent past. Reflecting the President’s effort 

to reduce expectations, the section on “Strengthening 

Afghan Governance” severely limits the use of the 

word “democracy” and instead focuses on enhancing 

the delivery of basic services. Yet, even after setting 

the bar lower, the required tasks and the costs associated with the effort are huge and growing, especially 
155

considering the realities of Afghanistan’s political culture and its demographics, as well as the sunk costs 

to date. The FY2011 budget request for the function of 

“Strengthening Governance” in Afghanistan is $1.76 

billion all by itself, and this request comes on the heels 

of actual expenditures of $977 million in FY2009 and 

$1.72 billion in FY2010.93 The specific tasks involved 

in realizing even the scaled-down version of “strong 

Afghan governance” are monumental ones, among 

them:

• “Reducing Corruption,” which includes creating and administering Afghan anti-corruption 

tribunals, a major crimes task force, an attorney 

general’s anti-corruption unit, a High Office of 

Oversight, and a mobile pay and financing capability;

• “Enhancing Sub-National Governance,” which 

includes launching and administering a District Development Plan, local governance and 

community development activities, an Afghan 

Social Outreach Program, the Afghan Municipality Support Program, and a PerformanceBased Governors Fund;

• “Enhancing Afghan Capacity,” which entails 

“encouraging merit-based appointments,” 

“leveraging our assistance . . . to incentivize 

improved performance, accountability, and 

transparency,” and “ensuring effective representation . . . in support of Afghan efforts to 

reform Afghanistan’s electoral system and nascent democratic machinery [while] encouraging greater participation by women in Afghan 

electoral politics.”94
156

Of course, these programs and initiatives are not 

all-inclusive of the U.S. Government or ISAF efforts 

aimed at strengthening Afghan governance, but instead represent the highest priorities for that sector 

under State’s current strategy. In support of these 

tough challenges, some of which run directly counter 

to the entrenched norms of Afghan society, the strategy highlights the “tripling of deployed U.S. civilians 

that occurred over the past year . . . to nearly 1,000 on 

the ground today.”95 This level of civilian agency support certainly represents a significant increase in the 

non-DoD personnel committed to Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, especially when contrasted with the mere 

dozens of non-DoD personnel deployed there early 

in the mission. However, there is still no way those 

1,000 experts—however hard they might work—can 

perform all of the tasks and sub-tasks required to realize the desired end-states for Afghanistan. This small 

number is even more revealing when it is compared 

with the approximately 100,000 military personnel 

who are currently deployed in support of the U.S. 

Government’s security objectives. Lastly, it is noteworthy that Secretary of State Clinton comments that 

the strategy is “aligned with our security objectives,” 

and that Defense Secretary Gates endorses it.96

Otherwise, State’s strategic guidance generally 

side-steps relevant questions about the coordination 

and integration of civilian agency effort with the DoD 

effort, and instead only briefly states that an “extensive 

transformation of U.S. civilian assistance activities” 

has led to “a more focused and effective assistance effort that is fully integrated across civilian agencies.”97

The implication of these statements is that State and 

the DoD have derived their strategies independently 

of one another, although they have aimed to maintain 
157

some consistency between them—but only because 

the Secretaries of State and Defense decided to do so, 

unlike their counterparts early in the Bush administration. This situation suggests two fundamental 

questions: First, why isn’t there one strategy for Afghanistan that applies equally to all of the agencies 

and departments operating in the Afghan and Pakistani theater of operations? And secondly, why does 

the aim of achieving civil-military cooperation toward 

the same American strategic goals depend upon the 

willingness of the Secretaries of State and Defense to 

work together?

A few months after the publication of the revised 

Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, 

the Obama administration issued its own National Security Strategy of the United States of America of 2010. 

Although this document backs away from the Bush 

administration’s focused embrace of democratic peace 

theory and its clear willingness to use the military instrument of national power to achieve those democratic ends, it is remarkably similar to the Bush-era 

strategic guidance in at least two major respects: First, 

rather than offering any clear-cut expression of U.S. 

national security interests tied to feasible ways of protecting or advancing those interests, all coupled to 

specific governmental capabilities and resources and 

placed within the context of acceptable risks, the 2010 

NSS reads as a laundry list of worthy aspirations. That 

is, it outlines its vision of interests and ways without 

couching those noble goals in any real discussion of 

available resources and capabilities. Secondly, while 

the document does offer more detail than its 2006 

counterpart regarding the specific components of the 

strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, and while it 

also clearly seeks to de-emphasize the notion of an Af-
158

ghan democracy, the 2010 NSS reaffirms the U.S. goal 

of creating a “strong, stable, and prosperous Afghanistan,” without making any mention of the associated 

means, costs, or risks.98

Not surprisingly, the DoD strategy for Afghanistan, expressed in the ISAF Campaign Strategy of May 

2010, reflects both the DoD’s extensive experience 

with strategic and operational planning as well as 

its access to resources and capabilities far superior to 

those of other agencies. Having settled upon irregular 

warfare operations in the form of a classic counterinsurgency campaign as the strategic method, and having acknowledged the need for at least a minimally 

viable Afghan government to achieve success in those 

operations, the ISAF Campaign Strategy identifies the 

following strategic and operational objectives:

• “Protect the population.”

— “Prioritize effort in high-density population areas where insurgent groups operate 

primarily with disaffected Pashtun population.”

— “Reduce civilian casualties.”

• “Enable Afghan National Security Forces.”

— “Accelerate and expand indigenous security force capacity and capability.”

— “Partner at every echelon.”

• “Neutralize malign influence.”

— “Identify and report corruption.”

— “Forge responsible and accountable governance.”

• “Support extension of governance.”

— “Gain active support of the population by 

empowering legitimate sub-national leaders with effective population security measures.”
159

• “Support socio-economic development.”

— “Gain active support of the population by 

creating security conditions that provide 

space for community-based development 

opportunities.”

— “Connect economic corridors.”99

The national-level strategic guidance has been further operationalized more recently in an updated U.S. 

Government Integrated Civil-Military Campaign Plan for 

Support to Afghanistan of February 2011. Like its predecessor, this document represents a well-intentioned 

and comprehensive effort at integrating the U.S. Government’s various instruments of power in Afghanistan. Also like its predecessor, it is worth noting, that 

this integration is not formally required by statute, but 

rather has come about as a result of the willingness 

and desire of the incumbent leaders at State and the 

DoD—both at the national level and at the operational 

level in Afghanistan—to see this formal effort at coordination and integration occur. When previous incumbents were not interested in this integration, it did 

not happen. Furthermore, it is still the case that agency and departmental budgets and programs are managed and funded agency-by-agency, meaning that decisions regarding budgetary priorities and execution 

are centralized in Washington, just as these budgetary 

firewalls can make the integration and execution of 

those budgets unwieldy on the ground. It is also still 

the case that operators on the ground respond most 

adroitly to those leaders above them in their agency or 

departmental supervisory chain, rather than the interagency leadership on the ground. 

Finally, for all of the DoD’s comparative advantages in strategic and operational planning and resources, 
160

two major strategic concerns remain. First, the cost of 

these operations, both in terms of the funds required 

to support them as well as the opportunity costs of 

the long-term commitment of U.S. forces to these 

strategic ends, is staggering. Specifically, the Obama 

administration’s overall defense budget request for 

FY2011 was a record $708 billion, with $159 billion of 

that amount earmarked specifically for the missions 

in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan.100 The costs for Afghanistan alone in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 are expected to amount to well above $100 billion each year. 

Additionally, while the U.S. military enjoys huge 

comparative advantages in resources and capabilities 

when contrasted with the civilian agencies operating 

in Afghanistan and Pakistan, it is still the case that the 

existing DoD capabilities are a poor fit with at least 

two of its strategic objectives—in the areas of governance and socioeconomic development—and likely 

part of a third, in the form of the police development 

mission. Lastly, in addition to the major economic and 

opportunity costs of this lengthy, challenging, and uncertain U.S. military commitment, this strategic choice 

has brought with it other very real costs in the form 

of casualties, long-term medical obligations, and the 

adverse effects of stress and continual deployments 

on the members of the U.S. military and their families. 

The long-term consequences of these strategic choices 

have already begun to emerge in the form of increasing domestic abuse and divorce rates, the prevalence 

of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the force, 

and highly elevated rates of suicide in the U.S. military, among other adverse impacts. 
161

DISJOINTED STRATEGY: THE ADVERSE 

CONSEQUENCES AND IMPLICATIONS

Long on ambition but short on civilian resources 

and other required capabilities, America’s national 

strategy and the corresponding objectives for Afghanistan and the region have only recently been clearly 

and consistently defined. Nevertheless, in many respects, this U.S. strategy remains disjointed and disconnected from the specific means needed to realize 

the U.S. Government and NATO’s ambitious vision. 

While the limits of democratic peace theory have been 

evident in the outcomes, challenges, and costs of Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. Government’s strategic 

guidance has largely failed to set realistic or feasible 

objectives. The U.S. Government has also failed to 

take truly substantive actions to overcome the major 

shortfalls in interagency coordination and integration 

that have generally characterized the U.S. effort over 

most of its duration. Moreover, the disjointed strategic 

guidance has typically included metrics for success 

that are broad enough that agencies can report “success” on their own terms, without necessarily having 

to link their agency efforts directly to the overarching 

goals of the mission. 

Without question, these strategic shortfalls carry 

with them significant and adverse strategic and operational consequences. Not the least of these adverse 

strategic impacts has come in the form of the incredibly expensive costs of the missions in Afghanistan 

and Iraq, most recently featuring an additional $33 billion earmarked to pay for the expansion of the Afghan 

war effort and the 30,000 troops of the Afghan surge. 

These costs, along with the $159 billion requested for 

FY2011, come on top of nearly $1 trillion of debt-fu-
162

eled spending on these missions in prior years. Other 

related adverse effects have resulted from a strategic 

and operational disunity of effort, leading to an inefficient and often ineffective use of resources and a basic 

lack of accountability.

Extending these themes further, the U.S. Government’s strategic shortcomings in Afghanistan also 

represent a recipe for increased strategic and operational risk in other regions of the world, reducing 

America’s strategic flexibility for both “hard” and 

“soft” power, while severely taxing the U.S. economy 

during a time of recession and economic instability. 

The mission’s duration and corresponding contributions to the national debt clearly represent major strategic risks of their own. Along the same lines, the U.S. 

policy in Afghanistan has clearly sacrificed potential 

opportunities for the multilateral pursuit of common 

interests, and its generally heavy-handed, militarycentered approach—coupled with the decision to 

invade Iraq—squandered international legitimacy as 

well as opportunities for cooperation with key potential strategic partners. At the same time, the decentralized and transnational nature of the genuine terrorist threat, along with the portability of WMD and the 

uncertainty of the eventual outcome in Afghanistan, 

all represent other risks that call into question the 

long-range viability and desirability of the U.S. strategic choices. These choices have also contributed to a 

reliance on the DoD for nonmilitary ends which, when 

coupled with the military’s natural focus on military 

operations, has resulted in accepting risk in other strategic requirements.

In getting to this point in our history, the United 

States was quick to specify ambitious ends and vaguely defined and overly optimistic ways, without ever 
163

grappling seriously with the questions of the exact 

means needed or available to achieve those ambitious ends and ways. In this way, the United States 

“backed” into nation-building without any serious, 

realistic, or rational discussion of the interests, ends, 

ways, or means at stake in the expansion of that mission. This strategic shortcoming was subsequently 

exacerbated, as Afghanistan was basically ignored for 

several years as a result of the decision to go to war in 

Iraq. Added to this recipe for serious problems was 

the fact that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld focused at 

the outset of the mission on validating his light-footprint theories of modern military power, and the associated under-resourcing of the Afghan mission was 

only reinforced by the subsequent decision to shift the 

main strategic effort to Iraq. As such, not only do these 

strategic choices represent a failure to conduct rational 

strategy formulation, but they are also indicative of 

a serious underestimation of the challenges involved 

in each mission, coupled with an overestimation of 

available U.S. agency capabilities and resources. In 

much the same way, this disjointed strategy ignored 

the broader strategic context, as the United States took 

on unsustainable costs, while potentially damaging 

other competing vital interests and sacrificing the strategic flexibility needed to address contingencies and 

requirements elsewhere in the world. 

Contrary to the tenets of rational strategy formulation, U.S. policymakers settled upon their strategic 

ways first, without any serious discussion of the vital 

interests at stake, the ends required to protect those 

interests, or the actual U.S. agency resources and capabilities available to realize that vision. And although 

the complexity and evolving nature of national security issues will always necessitate modifications to 
164

strategic plans as circumstances unfold, in the case of 

Afghanistan there has been no serious national discussion differentiating between “needs” and “wants.” 

As a result, the United States is now muddling ineffectually through a foreign policy that is too expensive and comes with major uncertainties of outcome 

and major risks. In the bipolar era of the Cold War, 

we may have been able to conduct foreign policy this 

way. However, we no longer have the luxury of saving the hard thinking and hard choices for later, if we 

ever did. Modern U.S. strategy must consist of more 

than mere statements of vision and intent.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 4

1. Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 

2010, p. 1.

2. Shahid Afsar, Chris Samples, and Thomas Wood, “The 

Taliban: An Organizational Analysis,” Military Review, May-June 

2008, p. 64.

3. William Morris, ed., The American Heritage Dictionary of the 

English Language, New College Edition, Boston, MA: HoughtonMifflin, 1981, p. 378.

4. Harry R. Yarger, Strategic Theory for the 21st Century: The 

Little Book on Big Strategy, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, 

U.S. Army War College, February 2006, p. 2.

5. Ibid.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., pp. 70-71.
165

8. Secretary of Defense, Proliferation: Threat and Response, 

Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 2001, 

summary and chapter on South Asia.

9. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos, New York: Penguin, 

2008, p. 173.

10. Richard B. Doyle, “The U.S. National Security Strategy: 

Policy, Politics, and Problems,” Public Administration Review, 

July/August 2007, pp. 624-625. 

11. Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, February 

2010.

12. Gary Dempsey, “The Folly of Nation-Building in Afghanistan,” CATO Institute, available from www.cato.org.

13. Astri Suhrke, “A Contradictory Mission? NATO from Stabilization to Combat in Afghanistan,” International Peacekeeping, 

Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2008, p. 215.

14. Ibid., p. 228.

15. Javier Solana, EU High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy, Summary of the Intervention, 

SO229/02, available from ue.eu.int/newsroom, p. 2.

16. Ibid.

17. Afghanistan Reconstruction: Despite Some Progress, Deteriorating Security and Other Obstacles Continue to Threaten Achievement 

of U.S. Goals, GAO, GAO-05-742, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, July 2005, p. 8.

18. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Current Issues and U.S. Policy, Washington, DC: CRS Report for Congress, RL30588, August 

27, 2003, p. 12.

19. Solana, p. 3.
166

20. Suhrke, p. 228.

21. Ibid., p. 214.

22. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “A New Plan for Afghanistan,” 

The Washington Post Weekly, June 29, 2009, p. 7.

23. Rashid, pp. 174-175.

24. David Rhode and David E. Sanger, “How the ‘Good War’ 

in Afghanistan Went Bad,” The New York Times, August 12, 2007, 

pp. A1, 12-13.

25. Ibid.

26. Ibid.

27. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: Potomac, 2008, pp. 129-130.

28. Katzman, summary.

29. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government, March 2002, p. 1.

30. President George W. Bush, National Strategy to Combat 

Weapons of Mass Destruction, Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, December 2002, p. 2. 

31. Afghanistan Reconstruction, p. 8.

32. Ibid., p. 9.

33. Katzman, summary.

34. Ibid.

35. Rhode and Sanger, pp. A1, 12-13.

36. Afghanistan Reconstruction, p. 10.
167

37. Ibid.

38. Ibid.

39. Rhode and Sanger, pp. A1, 12-13.

40. Ibid.

41. Suhrke, p. 214.

42. Katzman, summary.

43. Suhrke, p. 220.

44. Ibid., p. 215.

45. Ibid., p. 229.

46. Ibid., p. 218.

47. Ibid., p. 219.

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. Ibid., p. 217.

51. Rhode and Sanger, pp. A1, 12-13.

52. Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, National Military Strategic 

Plan for the War on Terrorism, Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, February 1, 2006.

53. Ibid., p. 33.

54. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government, March 2006, p. 1.

55. Ibid., p. 4.
168

56. Rhode and Sanger, pp. A1, 12-13.

57. Ibid.

58. The President of the United States, The National Strategy for 

Combating Terrorism, Washington, DC: U.S. Government, September 2006, pp. 9-17.

59. Ibid., pp. 12-17.

60. Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick, “Change Comes to 

Pakistan,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, August 

13-19, 2007, p. 9.

61. Suhrke, p. 227.

62. Jim Hoagland, “Poppies vs. Power in Afghanistan,” The 

Washington Post Weekly, January 20, 2008, p. 5.

63. DeYoung and Warrick, p. 9.

64. U.S. Department of State, FY2010 Mission Strategic Plan, 

U.S. Mission to Afghanistan, Washington, DC: U.S. Government 

Printing Office, May 12, 2008.

65. This observation was offered by Colonel Mike McMahon, 

former CJ-7 of CSTC-A.

66. Mark Mazzetti and David E. Sanger, “Obama Expands 

Missile Strikes Inside Pakistan,” The New York Times, February 21, 

2009, available from www.nytimes.com.

67. Ibid.

68. “A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan,” The Briefing Room-The Blog, blog post on White House public site posted 

March 27, 2009, available from www.whitehouse.gov.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid.
169

71. Ibid.

72. “Obama: Safety of World at Stake in Afghanistan,” CNN.

com report, available from www.cnn.com. 

73. “A New Strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan.” 

74. Katzman, summary.

75. Fred Kaplan, “The Transformer,” Foreign Policy, September/October 2010, p. 97.

76. Bob Woodward, “Preventing Another Iraq,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, July 13-19, 2009, p. 19.

77. Katzman, summary.

78. Anne Gearan (Associated Press), The Washington Times, 

available from www.washingtontimes.com.

79. Stanley A. McChrystal, COMISAF’S Initial Assessment, Kabul, Afghanistan: International Security Force Headquarters, August 30, 2009, p. 1-1. 

80. Ibid.

81. Bob Woodward, “McChrystal: More Forces or ‘Mission 

Failure’,” The Washington Post, September 21, 2009, available from 

www.washingtonpost.com. 

82. Kaplan, pp. 96-97.

83. William H. McMichael, “Afghanistan Withdrawal in ’11 

Could Be a Problem, Critics Say,” The Army Times, December 14, 

2009, p. 10.

84. Rod Norland, “Afghan Strategy Shifts to Accent Civilian 

Projects,” The New York Times, June 9, 2010, p. A1.

85. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “General Petraeus Says Afghanistan War Strategy ‘Fundamentally Sound,’” The Washington Post, 

August 16, 2010, available from www.washingtonpost.com.
170

86. Doyle, p. 626.

87. The National Security Strategy of the United States of America, 

March 2006, pp. 1-3.

88. Ibid., pp. 12, 16.

89. Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Missing Metrics of ‘Progress’ in Afghanistan (and Pakistan),” unpublished manuscript 

from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, November 29, 2007, pp. 3-6.

90. Ibid., summary.

91. Office of the Special Representative for Afghanistan and 

Pakistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy, 

Washington, DC: State Department, February, 2010, Message 

from the Secretary of State.

92. Ibid., Table of Contents.

93. Ibid., p. viii.

94. Ibid., pp. 7-10.

95. Ibid., p. iii.

96. Ibid., Front pages.

97. Ibid., p. 1. 

98. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government, May 2010, p. 21.

99. Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Afghan War – Part Three: 

Implementing the New Strategy,” Burke Chair in Strategy publication from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, 

Washington, DC, September 8, 2010, p. 6, available from csis.org/

files/publication/100909_AfghanWarStatus-III_Strategy.pdf.
171

100. “Obama Seeks Record $708 Billion in FY11 Defense Budget,” Reuters, available from www.reuters.com/article/

idUSN01181674201002010. 

173

CHAPTER 5

A CLASH OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES

AND RESOURCES

We’re just very small, and on many occasions I’ve 

been asked if the State Department could do things. 

It’s been hard to do. We have roughly 6,500 professionals world-wide. . . . [T]here are twice as many 

lawyers in the Defense Department as Foreign Service 

officers.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in 

testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, February 13, 20081

While defects in the process of formulating strategy have posed serious obstacles to mission success 

in Afghanistan, the inadequate policy products that 

have resulted from that process do not represent the 

only major barriers to successful nation-building and 

irregular warfare operations. On the contrary, these 

efforts have also been hampered by the fact that the 

institutional means available within the U.S. Government to carry out the complex and extensive tasks 

associated with nation-building and irregular warfare are inadequate to the demands of these types 

of missions. While numerous U.S. departments and 

agencies hold some responsibility for the operations 

in Afghanistan, the Department of Defense (DoD), the 

Department of State (State), and the U.S. Agency for 

International Development (USAID) serve as the “key 

three” for counterinsurgency and nation-building, 

with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) functioning as a shadowy and essentially independent fourth. 

For a host of reasons, however, these agencies are not 
174

especially well suited for the tasks required of them by 

these endeavors. In particular, these key agencies are 

poorly suited for nation-building, due to the realities 

of their respective organizational cultures, their existing core competencies, conflicting career incentives, 

and several other factors.

As an added challenge, the adverse effects of these 

organizational mismatches have been exacerbated by 

the disproportionate allocation of resources to the DoD 

that has characterized the mission in Afghanistan over 

its course. As a consequence of this resource imbalance and the shortfalls in agency capabilities and resources, the U.S. Government has come to rely heavily 

upon private contractors to perform a wide variety of 

functions, many of them critical to the overall success 

of the mission. This reliance on contractors is itself an 

especially troubling choice, given the contractors’ own 

conflicting incentive structures and the mismatches 

between their own levels and types of experience and 

the demands of these complex missions. The relationships among the various agencies and the contractors 

have also featured muddled lines of authority and 

ineffective mechanisms for exercising accountability. 

Viewed in the aggregate, there is evidence of a clear 

mismatch between the U.S. strategy for Afghanistan 

and the basic capabilities and resources of the agencies responsible for carrying out that strategy, since 

the United States has failed to perform the national 

strategic-level linkage of “troops-to-task”—or capabilities to requirements—needed to set the conditions 

for mission success.
175

THE CLASH OF ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURES 

The three key U.S. governmental agencies holding the primary responsibilities for the execution of 

Afghan counterinsurgency and nation-building missions are poorly suited to the demands of these missions, as a result of their prevailing organizational cultures. Organizational culture refers to “a persistent, 

patterned way of thinking about the central tasks of 

and human relationships within an organization,” an 

organizational trait sometimes likened to personality in humans.2

 In a more direct sense, organizational 

culture also refers to an institution’s ingrained focus, 

its interpretation of its core tasks and responsibilities, 

and the level or levels—strategic, operational, or tactical—at which the members of the organization have 

the most experience and skill. In the case of State, 

USAID, and the DoD, these three key agencies’ organizational cultures are mismatched with the requirements of nation-building, as their predominant organizational cultural norms, existing core competencies, 

and comparative levels of resources fall well short of 

the focus and capabilities needed to succeed in these 

missions. While these three agencies serve as the focal 

point for the U.S. Government’s efforts in Afghanistan, 

this same mismatch between organizational capabilities and the demands of the mission exists among the 

various other U.S. Government agencies operating in 

Afghanistan as well.

Consequently, a fair portion of the broader disjointedness and lack of coherence that is found across 

the reach of the U.S. national security apparatus stems 

from critical differences among the key agencies involved in the interagency process itself. These shortfalls include major organizational cultural disparities, 
176

as well as mismatches between the capabilities and 

expertise required at different strategic levels within 

those agencies to bring about success in counterinsurgency and nation-building. Furthermore, each of 

these agencies promotes and rewards certain types 

of assignments, with the most advantageous assignments in some agencies often being internal to the 

organizations themselves, rather than in service in an 

interagency setting or in overseas postings. It is helpful to examine the organizational cultures of each of 

the “key three” agencies before turning our attention 

to the ways in which the organizations interact.

The U.S. Department of State.

Over its long history, the Department of State has 

centered on two primary functions, including representing the interests of the United States and its citizens with foreign countries, and serving as the principal source of advice to the President on foreign affairs.3

In general, State is known for its organizational culture of talk and diplomacy, and at the theater-strategic 

level, the department concentrates on the embassy activities within each country. State’s expertise in governance resides primarily at the strategic level, and the 

organization often falters when asked to participate in 

or shape U.S. governmental actions at the operational 

or tactical levels. Political scientist and organizational 

theorist James Q. Wilson notes that State continues to 

“do what State does,” emphasizing its key core competencies of filing reports and crafting official policy 

communications.4

 Wilson further observes that “Foreign Service officers place a high value on ‘the diplomatic approach’ that . . . means caution, an aversion to 

bold language or action, and a desire for consensus.”5
177

From an operational perspective, State also has a 

persistent reputation for being poor at administering 

embassy security—one of its few and most basic operational responsibilities—and the department views 

its core tasks as “maintaining relationships and replying to correspondence,” or rendering reports that constitute policy when considered in the aggregate.6

 Not 

surprisingly, then, State’s organizational culture focuses upon communication skills, rather than administrative or operational tasks, and the organization has 

a reputation for inefficiency in the few administrative 

tasks required of it—promoting and rewarding “effective reporting” and “maintaining relationships”—

more than any other qualifications.7

Furthermore, these organizational cultural characteristics are deeply entrenched. In viewing the organization from a historical perspective, organizational 

theorist Donald Warwick’s careful study of State and 

its dominant characteristics shows that the roots of 

these institutional traits can be traced all the way back 

to State’s origins in 1789 and the ratification of the 

U.S. Constitution. At that time, the fledgling agency 

adopted the European model of diplomacy, with its 

emphasis on “representation, negotiation, and intelligence.”8

 These roles were codified formally by Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, but the American 

people’s native distrust of foreign affairs and foreign 

entanglements slowed the development of the agency 

and the American diplomatic service corps for many 

years—a trend that remained even as late as the end 

of the 19th century.9

 At the same time, a rivalry developed within the department between the two “career lines” of consular service and diplomacy, leaving 

State largely unprepared for the demands of World 

War II.10 In light of this unpreparedness, as well as the 
178

wartime proliferation of 46 other agencies and departments with some overseas roles or functions, it was 

at this point that State lost its primacy in American 

foreign affairs and, arguably, has never recovered it.11

Conceived mainly by the first Secretary of Defense, 

James Forrestal, the Secretary of Defense and the Joint 

Chiefs of Staff were able to consolidate the military’s 

gains in foreign policy influence through the creation 

of the National Security Council in 1947, a move that 

further undermined the State Department by giving 

the military direct access to the President, something 

it had not had under President Franklin Roosevelt.12

Describing the internal environment of State over 

the course of history, Warwick notes that although 

the agency has modest responsibilities for processing 

visas, passports, and other miscellaneous services to 

other government agencies and American travelers, 

the organization perceives its primary function as producing “foreign policy.”13 With this primary function 

in mind, the major focus of State activity is on producing written reports that, taken together, constitute 

foreign policy.14 As a byproduct of “the vagueness of 

foreign policy, overlapping of functions, and specialization” within the department, State’s organizational 

culture is one in which constant consultation and 

discussion are expected before any actions are taken, 

and the anticipated result of that consultation and discussion is a position on a foreign policy issue, rather 

than any concrete action plans or the management of 

operational functions.15

Corroborating this perspective, an insider’s account of the State Department in the 1920s described 

the organization as a “small, compact group of men 

and women, experts in their fields, who were competent to advise the Secretary of State and the President 
179

on the conduct of foreign policy.”16 The emphasis 

then, as now, was clearly on advising decisionmakers, rather than on executing policy. And even as State 

was subsequently expanded significantly in the postWorld War II years, that same insider noted that by 

the 1950s the agency had become a “bureaucratic empire,” one in which leaks of sensitive information and 

factual errors in State products were common.17 Citing widespread “overstaffing and inefficiency” across 

the department in the 1950s, this senior official drew 

a distinction between the agency’s smaller predecessors and their effectiveness in providing “a full and 

up to date report of what was done by the government 

in its relations with other governments.”18 Describing 

an agency full of competing agendas and interests, he 

cautioned, “Do not make the mistake of thinking of 

the State Department as the extension of the personality of one man, the Secretary of State, whoever he may 

be at any particular moment.”19

In terms of State’s modern structures, the organizational configuration at State presents its own challenges, as the subject matter experts are assigned to 

country and regional desks that are, in turn, juxtaposed against other functional alignments, with each 

answering to assorted undersecretaries and deputies.20 Compounding this fragmented and unwieldy 

organizational structure, State is also often criticized 

for an organizational culture that tends toward six 

“faults”: (1) a poor quality of staff work and analysis; 

(2) a slow pace of responses to requests for information or action; (3) a resistance to change and new approaches to problems; (4) an inadequacy in carrying 

out presidential decisions; (5) a failure to lead on foreign affairs; and, (6) a sense that the State Department 

leadership does not actually control its subordinate 

subdepartments.21
180

Regarding State’s operations in Afghanistan specifically, a variety of participant accounts corroborate these unflattering perspectives. Among them, 

Ambassador James Dobbins complained of this same 

“bureaucratic inertia” within the Department of State 

in his own account of his efforts to move the mission 

forward in Afghanistan in 2002.22 A U.S. military intelligence officer similarly described the embassy 

compound in Kabul as “the most secure compound I 

encountered in the country,” with a nickname of “Fort 

Paranoia.”23 Echoing this sentiment, one World Bank 

official noted that the U.S. Embassy in Kabul was so 

cut off from the rest of the country that it might as 

well be in Washington.24 As a participant in the Country Team’s working meetings chaired by then-U.S. 

Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, this officer noted 

that these meetings had a flavor exactly opposite of 

the command-centered military meetings he had participated in previously, with the Ambassador providing information to the various agency representatives 

rather than those agencies bringing information to 

him.25 He further describes an atmosphere of bloated 

bureaucracy and convoluted funding and support 

arrangements.26 My own experiences in the embassy 

and in the interagency environment in Afghanistan 

matched these observations.

Finally, these dominant norms of the State Department’s organizational culture are readily apparent in 

the department’s country-specific products and procedures. Most directly, this general lack of a planning 

and operator culture is clearly evident in products 

that are typically long on policy and broadly worded 

goals, but short on specific action plans and comprehensive metrics for measuring success. With this organizational culture in mind, it has become evident 
181

in the theaters in Afghanistan and Iraq that conducting foreign policy does not equal “building foreign 

governmental capacity.” State’s lack of operational 

capability is also evident in the agency’s generally 

unrealistic expectations about what can or cannot be 

done in a combat theater, along with overly optimistic 

timelines for the completion of complex operational 

tasks. Viewed in the aggregate, the members of State 

are typically thinkers, talkers, diplomats, communicators, and reporters, largely stuck in the embassy 

and with limited agility when it comes to planning 

or operating in the field. Recognizing some of these 

limitations in their own department, State has recently 

initiated an attempt to change its own organizational 

culture through the implementation of a “Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review” (QDDR), 

patterned after the DoD’s “Quadrennial Defense Review” (QDR).

The U.S. Agency for International Development. 

The U.S. Agency for International Development 

was created by the Kennedy administration in 1961 

for the express purpose of administering foreign economic assistance programs and distributing aid. As 

a product of the Cold War era, USAID was the first 

agency “whose primary emphasis was on long-range 

economic and social development assistance efforts . . .

freed from the political and military functions that 

plagued its predecessor organizations.”27 From its 

inception, USAID has been an action-oriented field 

organization responsible for carrying out the U.S. 

Government’s routine humanitarian assistance and 

economic development activities, rather than an agency concerned with the more substantial and compre-
182

hensive requirements of “nation-building.” As such, 

the agency’s organizational culture centers on its field 

activities and delivery of aid at the local level of operations.

As a consequence of this tactical-level focus, the 

agency is much less effective when asked to participate in or shape the U.S. Government’s actions at the 

operational or theater-strategic levels. Representative 

of this mindset, USAID leaders can typically point to 

a map and identify hundreds of development projects 

that are underway or completed, but they are far less 

adept at coordinating those projects across the theater 

to achieve broader operational or strategic objectives. 

Similarly, the agency is not very effective at the task 

of coordinating all of the components needed for each 

developmental project, such as linking teachers with 

schools, judges with courthouses, or jails with police 

officers. Like State, then, in Afghanistan USAID continues to “do what they do,” including subcontracting local development projects, meeting with local 

officials, and operating mainly in the permissive security environments in the country where their agents 

and contractors can move about freely. Furthermore, 

this organizational mindset is not new to the agency, 

as there were similar criticisms leveled at USAID in 

Vietnam. During that war, military commanders complained that the USAID operatives tended to cling to 

the urban centers, rather than remaining in the villages and hamlets where they were most needed.28

As another aspect of this organizational dynamic, 

USAID is nominally subordinate to State in the executive branch’s current bureaucratic organizational arrangements. In reality, however, the agency answers 

to its own hierarchy and pursues its own programs 

and priorities, consistent with its members’ inter-
183

pretations of the agency’s mission and capabilities. 

Along these lines, while State typically sets goals that 

are somewhat lofty and broad in their phrasing and 

scope, USAID typically expresses its achievements in 

terms of numbers of projects completed and processes 

implemented, rather than in end-states achieved. Examples of these USAID metrics include immunizations given, miles of roads constructed, government 

assistance provided, and estimates of “lives saved.”29

Compounding these organizational differences in vision and interpretation of mission, State and USAID 

have business development, economic assistance, and 

agricultural programs that cut across different internal organizational boundaries, likely due to the legacy 

of their past independent operations.30

In any event, while USAID is supposed to assist 

State in a subordinate executive role to help further 

U.S. foreign policy objectives, the two organizations 

tend to focus on opposite ends of the national security spectrum. USAID’s culture typically focuses on 

“operators” and the tactical-level, which is clearly at 

odds with State’s “big picture” strategic-level emphasis. Adding to the challenges posed by this juxtaposition of organizational cultures, it was also apparent 

to me during my own time in Afghanistan that while 

the U.S. ambassador serves as the senior representative for the President and State on the ground, the 

USAID leadership in the theater of operations was at 

least as concerned about the guidance and approval of 

the senior USAID leaders in Washington as they were 

with the approval for their activities from the ambassador. It was equally clear that neither the State nor 

USAID organizational cultures feature the planning 

and operational mindset that is common within the 

DoD, a reality that severely limits the effectiveness of 
184

both organizations in their execution of the complex 

requirements of nation-building.

As further evidence of these differences in organizational culture, key documents from each organization and other documents issued jointly by the 

two institutions provide additional insights into their 

respective organizational cultural norms. Reflecting 

the task that led to its creation in 1961, the USAID 

Primer: What We Do and How We Do It interprets the 

agency’s core task as “promoting national security . . . 

by addressing poverty fueled by lack of economic opportunity, one of the root causes of violence today.”31

Surveying its own institutional challenges, the USAID 

Failed States Strategy of 2005 identifies a number of 

shortcomings that USAID must overcome to be more 

successful in its reconstruction and nation-building 

activities. These required changes include increasing 

the agency’s ability to operate within non-permissive 

environments, and shifting from its current focus on 

policy reform to institution building when assisting 

host nations with governance. This document also 

cites other needed improvements, including a call for 

a shift in agency emphasis to infrastructure deficits, 

such as road-building competencies, the development 

of its rapid response capabilities, and increasing interagency effectiveness.32

 Along the same lines, State and USAID’s jointly issued Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2007-2012 outlines the 

strategic goals of these two agencies and provides further insights into the dominant norms of their organizational cultures. Defining the organizations’ joint 

mission, the document states: 

Advance freedom for the benefit of the American 

people and the international community by helping 
185

to build and sustain a more democratic, secure, and 

prosperous world composed of well-governed states 

that respond to the needs of their people, reduce widespread poverty, and act responsibly within the international system.33

The document further identifies seven broad strategic goals for State and USAID: “1) Achieving peace 

and security; 2) governing justly and democratically; 

3) investing in people; 4) promoting economic growth 

and prosperity; 5) providing humanitarian assistance; 

6) promoting international understanding; and 7) 

strengthening our consular and management capabilities.”34

In terms of the processes or means to be used to 

achieve these lofty ends, the State-USAID strategic 

plan states that the Assistant Secretary for Resource 

Management and the senior leaders of the regional 

bureaus will “hold detailed reviews annually with 

approximately 30 percent of missions to evaluate 

recent progress and program changes, including resource and personnel requests.”35 The document also 

mentions country-specific program evaluations in 

the form of Country Operational Plans and annual 

reviews as another process. However, these reviews 

are focused only on those countries that receive foreign assistance funds, and they are aimed at providing 

an interagency overview of the execution of that assistance.36 The State-USAID strategic plan also briefly 

mentions coordinating with key U.S. agency partners 

to achieve the seven major goals, though the document offers no details as to how this coordination is 

to occur—a shortfall that is particularly conspicuous 

given State’s usual responsibilities as the senior U.S. 

officials in any country in which U.S. agencies oper-
186

ate. In essence, the document is typical of State in that 

it offers broad rhetoric with few specifics, and in this 

way it is consistent with the organization’s dominant 

cultural norm of making policy without specifying the 

ways or means that will be used to achieve the policy’s 

ambitious ends.

Consistent with these national-level documents, 

the joint State and USAID country-specific products 

represent an interesting hybrid of the two organizational cultures. These documents reflect a mix of 

State’s broadly worded and ambitious goals that are 

subsequently reduced to USAID-style metrics focused 

on individual projects, and thus lack any comprehensive and coordinated measures of success in the process. As noted in the previous chapter, the documents 

generally fall far short of what is needed to coordinate, 

integrate, and evaluate the U.S. Government’s nationbuilding performance in Afghanistan. In sum, neither 

State nor USAID has the norms of planning and operations as central features of their respective organizational cultures. Lacking its own more comprehensive 

performance measures, State has maintained its own 

rhetorical style in its articulation of U.S. objectives, 

while adopting the USAID’s project-centered metrics 

in establishing the benchmarks for measuring success.

The U.S. Department of Defense. 

The U.S. Department of Defense is a robust and action-oriented field organization, and one centered on 

military and security operations. The DoD is highly 

effective at planning and executing military operations at the theater-strategic, operational, and tactical levels, but to date the organization has been less 

effective in planning and executing the nonmilitary 
187

components of nation-building and counterinsurgency operations. These nontraditional mission elements 

range from economic and governmental development 

to the implementation of the rule of law and others. 

Consistent with its self-identity as an institution that 

exists to “fight and win our nation’s wars,” the DoD 

has at times been resistant to the nonmilitary aspects 

of counterinsurgency and stability operations. In 

these settings, the DoD usually interprets “security” 

as meaning developing and assisting indigenous security forces. As has become clear in Afghanistan and 

Iraq, however, real security also involves economic 

development, the creation of a culture that respects the 

rule of law, and a government with the systems and 

structures in place to root out corruption and corrupt 

officials. As an organization, the DoD and its leaders 

have been somewhat slower to embrace these roles. 

While the DoD leadership and the institution have 

at times resisted the shift to nation-building and other 

stabilization and reconstruction tasks, for the most 

part the DoD has worked hard to become a learning 

organization that increases its capabilities in these 

areas. Applying its organizational cultural norm of 

“can-do” to these nontraditional missions, DoD leaders are more likely to request additional resources to 

avoid mission failure than to give up, as the organization’s typical response is to say “yes” to whatever mission it is presented and then do what it takes within 

the boundaries of the law to get it done. Nevertheless, 

upon taking command in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal acknowledged in his initial assessment 

of conditions that nearly a decade into the mission a 

mismatch still remained between the military’s mission requirements and its existing capabilities, noting 

that “ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] 

is a conventional force that is poorly configured for 
188

[counterinsurgency], inexperienced in local languages 

and culture, and struggling with challenges inherent 

to coalition warfare.”37 With these shortfalls in mind, 

General McChrystal was also adamant in his call for a 

properly resourced strategy, arguing that “Resourcing 

coalition forces below this level will leave critical areas 

of Afghanistan open to insurgent influence while the 

ANSF [Afghanistan National Security Force] grows.”38

He took similarly aggressive steps to begin to shift the 

kinetic focus within the U.S. and NATO forces as well.

Lastly, while the key three agencies are the most 

significant players in these missions, there are many 

other U.S. agencies playing their own important roles 

in the nation-building component of the Afghan mission. These other important agencies in Afghanistan 

include State’s Justice Sector Support Program (JSSP) 

and the International Bureau of Narcotics and Law 

Enforcement (INL); the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA); and the CIA. Still others include agencies whose parent organizations are more typically 

focused on their domestic American activities, such 

as the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and 

its Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), along with the 

Department of Justice (DoJ) and its Office of Overseas 

Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training 

(OPDAT) and International Criminal Investigative 

Training Assistance Program (ICITAP).39 Altogether, 

these organizations represent an “alphabet soup” of 

agencies with competing jurisdictions, agendas, interests, capabilities, and visions for the desired end-states 

in Afghanistan. Unfortunately, what each of them also 

holds in common is a generally poor organizational fit 

with the complex and expansive demands of nationbuilding and counterinsurgency. 

As a related adverse consequence of these organizational mismatches, these agencies generally lack 
189

a common operating picture and a common understanding of the problem in Afghanistan. Instead, each 

agency settles upon a different definition of the problem consistent with its own culture, capabilities, and 

internal operating procedures. Likewise, there are 

also significant differences between the agencies’ respective career incentives for overseas and interagency service, because some organizations require their 

employees to accept overseas or interagency assignments while others do not. A similar disparity exists 

in terms of promotion practices, with some agencies 

and departments placing an emphasis on overseas or 

interagency postings for the purposes of promotion, 

while others focus on assignments within the parent 

organizations in the United States. 

Along the same lines, researchers point to these differences in organizational culture and the major disparity in resources as primary causes of interagency 

coordination challenges and conflicts. In some cases, 

other sources of organizational friction result from the 

internal differences between components of the same 

organization concerned with long-term responses to 

foreign policy challenges and those concerned with 

short-term or emergency responses.40 In sum, these 

differences in organizational culture present challenges for and between each of the agencies operating in 

Afghanistan. 

THE DISPARITY BETWEEN REQUIRED 

CAPABILITIES AND RESOURCES 

In addition to the challenges posed by these mismatched organizational cultures, the key three U.S. 

agencies central to nation-building in Afghanistan are 

also poorly equipped for this mission in terms of core 

expertise, capabilities, and available resources. There 
190

has been no real strategic-level troop-to-task analysis 

for the nation-building objectives. To put this claim 

into perspective, one has only to examine the key documents that provide national strategic guidance and 

agency directives to see evidence of these disconnections. The National Security Strategy of 2006 places “democracy promotion” at the center of the U.S. national 

security effort, “promoting effective democracies” as 

the primary means of thwarting an “aggressive ideology of hatred and murder.”41 While each document 

modestly reduces expectations for Afghanistan, the 

Afghanistan and Pakistan Regional Stabilization Strategy

and the Obama administration’s own National Security 

Strategy, both published in 2010, continue this trend of 

relatively unconstrained strategic reach. 

Examining the country-specific strategy more directly, the published guidance fails to assign responsibilities for the accomplishment of its ambitious goals, 

and the plans also fail to define clearly the tasks associated with these goals. Likewise, some of the national 

strategic goals also require capabilities not currently 

found among the U.S. governmental agencies in question. For example, U.S. Central Command (USCENTCOM) commander Admiral William Fallon stated in 

his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in May 2007 that U.S. forces were working toward “improving Afghan governance, infrastructure, 

and the economy,” and that the United States was 

“actively pursuing initiatives in . . . building schools 

(and) stimulating the growth of small businesses.”42

Admiral Fallon did not offer insights into how the U.S. 

military was developing the specific expertise needed 

to carry out these diverse, nonmilitary functions. At 

about the same time, however, another senior American commander noted that he “could count on the 
191

fingers of one or two hands the number of U.S. Government agricultural experts” sent to Afghanistan, in 

spite of the fact that 80 percent of the Afghan economy 

is agriculturally based.43

As another snapshot of these disconnections, State 

also published a document that solicits American business investment in Afghanistan, an initiative seemingly wholly out of touch with the realities of the security conditions on the ground.44 Expressing his own 

concerns regarding the disconnection of capabilities 

from requirements, Ambassador John Herbst, State’s 

Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization 

Operations, identified some of these same gaps in vision and capability in his testimony before the House 

Armed Services Committee in 2008.45 Obscuring this 

broad mismatch between ends, ways, and means, 

was the fact that it was not until September 2009 that 

the FY2009 supplemental appropriation required the 

administration to develop better metrics to evaluate 

progress in Afghanistan, including “the performance 

and legitimacy of the Afghan government and its efforts to curb official corruption.”46

Examining this capabilities gap more specifically, 

it is unlikely that any agency could achieve success 

in Afghanistan without a deep understanding of the 

particular challenges of the country’s social, cultural, 

political, and economic framework, or the constraints 

posed by them. As a simple but important example of 

this shortfall, in the early days of the Afghan mission 

one observer noted that only one member of the State 

operation in Kabul spoke an Afghan language.47 Almost 10 years into the mission in Afghanistan, there is 

still very limited country-specific language capability 

or Afghan cultural skills within the key U.S. agencies 

operating in the country. 
192

In this same vein, it has also been difficult for State 

to fill its embassy postings in Kabul and its positions 

on Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT). At one 

point, State had to ask the DoD to come up with about 

120 personnel to fill 350 new positions created on the 

PRTs, and the DoD filled the requirement but could do 

so only on a temporary basis.48 Part of the reason the 

DoD had a difficult time filling the 120 positions—in 

spite of the fact that 2.5 million members serve in the 

department altogether—was that the PRT positions 

called for senior personnel who were well-versed in 

political, military, and economic affairs—unfortunately, personnel with these qualifications where in short 

supply and needed by the DoD for other assignments 

as well.49 State is further challenged by the fact that 

its overseas postings are filled on a voluntary basis, 

rather than by mandate. The gap between agency capabilities and mission requirements is even more dramatic when one considers the hundreds of complex 

tasks and subtasks that nation-building comprises.

These problems are further compounded by the 

major differences between the DoD and the otherthan-DoD agencies, in terms of their respective resources, interests, and jurisdictional authorities. As an 

oft-cited example, there are more members of Army 

bands than there are Foreign Service officers, and it is 

also commonly pointed out that all of State comprises 

fewer personnel than the sailors who make up one 

carrier battle group. There are approximately 6,500 

Foreign Service officers altogether who are responsible for both the emergency response functions and the 

longer-term planning at State.50 Additionally, State’s 

responsibilities increased significantly when the U.S. 

Government disbanded the United States Information 

Agency (USIA), and the number of personnel with-
193

in USAID was also drastically reduced at about the 

same time USIA was dismantled. Putting a fine point 

on this imbalance, there are about 2,000 total USAID 

employees responsible for all of the functions of that 

agency.51 Conversely, there are 23,000 people in the 

Pentagon working on planning and strategy development alone, and the DoD budget now exceeds $700 

billion per year.52 The combined budgets of State and 

USAID total about $25 billion annually.53

In spite of the heightened diplomatic and economic demands of nation-building, this resource disparity 

is apparent at the operational level of activity as well, 

with the Commander’s Emergency Response Fund 

serving as another effective example of the major 

disparity in resources between the agencies. Military 

commanders are given the funds and authority to pay 

for local projects that will benefit the indigenous population—funds they can utilize at their own discretion. 

These projects can cost as much as $50,000 or $100,000, 

yet the U.S. ambassador to that same country—the senior U.S. official—is limited to disbursing a maximum 

of $50,000 in the event of an emergency.54 As a side 

note, State and USAID also face the distinct political 

disadvantage of having no natural domestic political 

constituencies, since their budgets are often targeted 

specifically for congressional rants about money being 

“wasted” overseas.

The Department of State. 

Examining each organization in turn, the State 

Department is the agency with statutory responsibility for coordinating all U.S. governmental activity in 

foreign countries.55 In spite of increasing U.S. overseas 

engagement and activity around the globe in recent 
194

years, State’s budget and operations have steadily 

decreased over the last few decades, including a 20 

percent overall decline in the 1970s and 1980s.56 These 

reductions took place as part of Vice President Al Gore’s National Performance Review (NPR) of the mid1990s. This initiative actually reduced the number of 

overseas posts, and featured other measures aimed 

at streamlining State around its “core missions” of 1) 

“building and maintaining alliances”; 2) advancing 

“the economic interests of the American people”; 3) 

promoting “democratic values and respect for human 

rights”; and 4) providing “protection and services to 

Americans abroad” while controlling “access to the 

United States.”57 As of 2007, State had only 6,500 Foreign Service officers, and USAID had only about 2,000 

around the world.58

Having identified seven major strategic goals for 

itself and USAID in its strategic plan, State is even 

worse off today than it was in years past in terms of its 

ability to provide assets in support of those ambitious 

goals. Perhaps not surprisingly, State is hard pressed 

to identify its own specific successes, describing its 

work in Afghanistan by using USAID-driven metrics, 

such as “provided voter registration,” “established . . .

law library,” and “trained over 950 judges,” rather 

than more coherent measures that would capture 

more specific progress toward the accomplishment 

of the major national and theater objectives.59 Furthermore, Foreign Service members who have served 

on PRTs commonly complain that they have felt like 

“pins on a map,” sent out so State officials in Washington can say they were there.60 Likewise, an internal report within the Kabul Embassy notes that “Job 

performance is significantly impeded by very strict 

security requirements that constrain movements,” but 

lauds the “dedicated, all-volunteer staff.”61
195

The United States Agency for International 

Development. 

Like its parent organization, USAID’s personnel 

strength levels peaked during the Vietnam War when 

the agency had about 15,000 personnel. However, 

the agency’s strength had fallen to fewer than 2,000 

personnel by 2002, as USAID had shrunk from its 

strength of 13,000 personnel at the end of the Vietnam 

War to about 2,300 prior to September 9, 2001 (9/11).62

The agency’s involvement in Afghanistan in the years 

leading up to the U.S. intervention consisted mostly of 

providing funds to the United Nations’ (UN) World 

Food Program, and the agency had few, if any, field 

officers who knew the country or spoke local languages.63 This lack of field operatives with Afghan cultural 

skills caused the agency to rely heavily on private 

contractors “for the management and oversight of its 

programs” once U.S. operations began.64 Caused primarily by the major budget-driven personnel reductions in the agency in the 1980s and 1990s, USAID’s 

shortfall in personnel and its heavy reliance on local 

contractors has meant that in many, if not most, cases, 

the U.S. contracts have actually been administered by 

corrupt or incompetent Afghan agents.65

From the start of the operations, the USAID agents 

operating in Kandahar ran into numerous bureaucratic obstacles that prevented the funding and implementation of their projects, while the U.S. Army’s civil 

affairs teams ran into similar impediments in attempting even the most basic tasks.66 Participants in the USAID reconstruction process also quickly learned that 

there was no master plan for Afghan development 

and reconstruction, so the agency instead emphasized 
196

Projects,” or “QUIPs,” as they came to be known.67

USAID’s budget doubled to $14 billion after 9/11, but 

the agency only hired an additional 100 officers, and 

its operation in Kabul included only 12 personnel, as 

the agency continued its reliance on contractors for 

the actual provision of all services and reconstruction projects.68 Sixteen months after President Bush’s 

“Marshall Plan” speech, USAID still had only seven 

full-time staffers in Afghanistan, along with 35 fulltime contract staffers, who were mostly Afghan.69

On the positive side of this equation, USAID has 

developed a solid understanding of the central tasks 

of democracy-promotion and capacity-building, requirements that are outlined in the agency’s publication of December 2005, At Freedom’s Frontiers: A 

Democracy and Governance Strategic Framework. This 

document identifies critical tasks related to the promotion of the rule of law, human rights, justice, effective 

governance, freedom, and free political discourse and 

participation.70 However, the framework falls short in 

two key ways. First, there is the fact that it prescribes 

a Western model of democracy and institutions that 

may not fit all countries or circumstances. Second, the 

agency clearly does not have the personnel or funding 

needed to plan, resource, implement, and monitor the 

processes outlined in the document.

The Department of Defense. 

Against the backdrop of this scarcity of resources at 

State and USAID, it would seem to be hard to make the 

case that the DoD is also short of the resources needed 

to accomplish its missions. However, even within the 

U.S. military and ISAF’s major security assistance effort—arguably the main effort for the NATO forces 
197

in Afghanistan—a General Accounting Office (GAO) 

study in 2008 found that the Afghan National Police 

lacked police trainers and mentors in more than 75% 

of the Afghan police districts.71 Reinforcing this view 

separately, in October 2008, U.S. commanders said 

they needed at least 2,300 more military personnel to 

train the Afghan army and police.72 And in spite of 

the many billions of dollars already provided to them, 

the GAO study found that the Afghan National Army 

(ANA) lacked 40% of the critical materiel needed for 

its units, while the Afghan National Police (ANP) suffered widespread shortages in basic equipment such 

as vehicles, radios, and personal armor.73 More recently, senior leaders have indicated that the police training effort alone is still short by at least 1,000 trainers.

Furthermore, given the scope of this incredibly 

complex and broad undertaking, it is clear that success in nation-building requires more than merely 

establishing security, and the assumption that the 

other pieces of the puzzle will fall into place once a 

secure environment is created has been shown to be 

invalid. In John Nagl’s well-known book on counterinsurgency, former Army Chief of Staff General Peter 

Schoomaker notes that “each follow-on unit learns 

from the experience of those in contact with the enemy.”74 However, it is impossible to teach the parts 

of the problem that you do not understand yourself, 

and the U.S. military is unprepared by its existing 

core competencies to conduct the majority of the tasks 

subsumed under nation-building. As a result, the 

military’s conventional tactics in Afghanistan have 

at times been counterproductive to the longer-term 

objectives of nation-building, demonstrating the gap 

between the skills and capabilities needed and the realities of the force’s current core competencies.75 This 
198

mismatch has been particularly evident in the extensive use of close air support, a tactic that has resulted 

in numerous incidents of civilian casualties, including 

one in which it was alleged that U.S. pilots mistook 

celebratory gunfire at a wedding for a Taliban attack, 

resulting in about 50 civilian deaths and an Afghan 

and international outcry.76

Expanding on this theme, in any country it is necessary to understand the linkages and nuances of “tribal 

loyalties, political motivations, and family relationships,” among other factors, and to understand the 

range of feasible governing and economic systems.77

In his initial assessment after taking command in 

2009, General Stanley McChrystal noted that “ISAF is 

a conventional force . . . poorly configured for [counterinsurgency], inexperienced in local languages and 

culture, and struggling with the challenges inherent to 

coalition warfare.”78 General McChrystal called for “a 

dramatic change in the way we operate,” including a 

“change in operational culture” that would enable the 

force to “connect with the people.”79 Not surprisingly, 

the efforts to develop basic Afghan ministerial capabilities, a legitimate Afghan economy, the elements of 

the rule of law, and a coherent counternarcotics plan 

have all lagged well behind the effort to develop the 

security forces, whether viewed in terms of emphasis, 

effort, or the resources committed to those purposes. 

Reinforcing this view, a March 2009, study by the GAO 

noted that the efforts to create administrative capacity 

in the Ministry of the Interior continued to suffer both 

from a lack of military resources as well as a lack of 

cooperation and effort by the Afghans.80

In terms of their own resources, other U.S. agencies operating in Afghanistan are even worse off than 

the “key three.” These agencies suffer from their 
199

own distinct challenges in the form of a lack of the 

particular skills needed for counterinsurgency and 

“nation-building,” and an inadequacy of resources 

needed to carry out the mission. In the case of some 

of these other agencies, they are hamstrung further by 

the fact that they are more typically focused on domestic U.S. matters and have little in the way of deployable personnel capable of carrying out these types 

of missions. For example, neither the Department of 

Justice (DoJ) nor the U.S. Department of Agriculture 

(USDA) has significant nation-building expertise or 

capabilities. Therefore, in spite of the importance of 

rule of law development, the counternarcotics effort, 

and agricultural redevelopment to the overall success 

of the counterinsurgency, USDA had only about six 

personnel in Afghanistan in the fall of 2008, while the 

Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) had about 

20 personnel there at the same time. Though slightly 

better resourced for its rule of law mission, the DoJ 

has only a few hundred employees available altogether for missions that require them to deploy to the 

theaters of operations, and those personnel are limited to deployments of a short duration.81 The “civilian 

surge” featured in President Obama’s announcement 

of a new strategy for Afghanistan on March 27, 2009, 

roughly tripled the total number of civilian experts in 

Afghanistan to 900.82

To place these resource constraints into their proper 

perspective, in the year that President Bush promised 

a “Marshall Plan” for Afghanistan, the country actually received less per capita aid than Bosnia, Kosovo, 

or Haiti.83 Additionally, other critical resources such 

as Predator drone aircraft and reconstruction assets 

were diverted to Iraq, among them “elite CIA teams 

and Special Forces units involved in the search for ter-
200

rorists.”84 And while the Obama Administration acknowledges that the counternarcotics programs and 

other activities in Afghanistan are “under-resourced,” 

its Fiscal Year (FY)2010 budget request did not seek 

significantly higher funding for any of those programs.85 The request for FY11 also remained at about 

the same level.

As a consequence of these disparities between 

agency resources and program management capability, decisionmakers have come to rely upon the 

Department of Defense even more heavily than they 

might have otherwise. This reliance on the DoD has 

translated into the DoD being provided with even 

more resources in the process, making the resource 

imbalance between agencies even greater.86 These 

disparities are exacerbated further by the fact that the 

DoD, with its millions of personnel and assets spread 

throughout every political jurisdiction, enjoys a natural “constituency” status with the policymakers who 

allocate resources. State and USAID, on the other 

hand, have miniscule staffs in comparison and little if 

any natural domestic political “constituency.”87

The Advantages and Disadvantages of the DoD’s 

Disproportionate Role.

With all of these considerations in mind, it is important to consider the special capabilities that the 

DoD brings to the table linked to irregular warfare, 

even as others question why the military is the primary 

vehicle for the mission of “nation-building.” Among 

other advantages, the DoD’s resources of personnel, 

organization, and equipment easily dwarf the basic 

capabilities of the other government agencies, as does 

the Defense budget, when compared with the resourc-
201

es of the other agencies. Similarly, the DoD is already 

keenly concerned with counterinsurgency operations 

as part of its basic national security mandate, unlike 

some agencies and departments that have resisted the 

expansion of their own missions in that direction. The 

DoD also has very well established and more effective 

hierarchical structures and decision-making processes, when contrasted with the organizational cultures 

and predominant skill sets of other key agencies and 

departments. The DoD has well established command 

and support integration mechanisms already. The Department has also made great institutional strides toward a joint operating culture in the years since implementing the Goldwater-Nichols Act of 1986—the law 

that required the services to achieve interoperability 

and a joint services mindset.

Just as significantly, the DoD already has the ability 

to operate in non-permissive security environments, 

and the organization brings with it a “Soldier ethos” 

and “can-do” mission focus. The department has organic sustainment capabilities and logistical support 

structures, and the DoD organizational culture already 

features a well-developed norm of responsiveness to 

civilian political authorities. As an “action-oriented 

field organization,”the DoD is also able to accept casualties in the execution of its mission. In sum, among 

the “key three” organizations, the DoD has the most 

well-developed planning and operating culture, and a 

level of comfort in moving between the different levels of national security activity. These characteristics 

are unmatched by State’s strategic-level “reporting 

and talking” culture, or USAID’s tactical-level and locally focused “field operator” culture. In its ability to 

bridge these gaps in organizational culture and agency capabilities, the DoD offers distinct advantages in 

serving as the primary vehicle for nation-building.
202

At the same time, the overreliance on the DoD 

in these missions carries with it some distinct disadvantages, as well. For one, the DoD has “generally 

viewed involvement in stability operations, including 

humanitarian or development activities, as, at best, 

a distraction from core warfighting competencies.”88

Along these lines, the Department of Defense is clear 

in its own perception of its roles and functions, and 

this self-identity is outlined directly in the National Defense Strategy of 2008, a document drafted in support 

of the broader National Security Strategy of 2006. Not 

surprisingly, and in spite of the dominant theme of 

democracy promotion prevalent throughout the National Security Strategy, there is clearly a conventional 

military cast to the DoD objectives outlined in support 

of the NSS, including the primary tasks of defending 

the homeland, winning “the long war,” promoting security, deterring conflict, and “winning our nation’s 

wars.”89

 Reflecting the “can-do” cultural norm that pervades the DoD, the National Military Strategy also 

highlights “soft power” capabilities and the integration of efforts . . . but notes that the DoD “has taken on 

many of these burdens” while stepping “up to the task 

of long-term reconstruction, development and governance.”90 The document also offers two brief paragraphs that speak generally of continuing “to work to 

improve understanding and harmonize best practices 

among interagency partners.”91

In a 2008 speech that garnered much attention, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates noted that other 

agencies were more properly suited for the execution 

of many “soft power” tasks. He called for “greater civilian participation” and for making “better use of our 

universities and of industry to assist in reconstruction 
203

and long-term improvements to economic vitality and 

good government.”92 The current overreliance on the 

Department of Defense for nation-building and the 

disproportionate resourcing of the department has led 

to DoD dominance in the planning and execution of 

both missions in Afghanistan—irregular warfare and 

nation-building—and a concurrent overemphasis on 

the conventional military or “kinetic” aspects of those 

operations. As the simplest evidence in support of this 

assertion, one only has to examine the respective resources, attention, and leader emphasis committed to 

the development of the ANSF and contrast them with 

the far lower level of resources and effort applied to 

improving the Afghan economy, the elements of the 

rule of law, and effective governance. Even within the 

effort to design and develop the ANSF, there has been 

a clear bias in favor of developing the Afghan National Army at the expense of the Afghan National Police. 

Of course, it is hardly surprising that the DoD would 

focus on building the Afghan military rather than its 

police force. As an organization, that is “what we do.” 

FILLING THE SHORTFALLS: THE ROLES AND 

RISKS OF CONTRACTORS

In order to overcome the various shortfalls in the 

agencies and departments charged with nation-building and irregular warfare responsibilities in Afghanistan, the U.S. Government has turned to privately contracted firms on a remarkable scale. There are hundreds 

of thousands of contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq, a 

phenomenon that can be attributed directly to the unanticipated requirements of nation-building.93 During 

FY2008, for example, there were 265,000 contractors 

employed by the U.S. Government in Afghanistan and 
204

Iraq, with functions including reconstruction, logistics 

and base support, advisers, interpreters, bodyguards, 

and other security personnel.94 Other skills sought by 

the DoD in support of the nation-building objectives 

include drug-sniffing dogs and their handlers, intelligence collection and analysis, and warehousing and 

logistical distribution services, all intended for areas 

in and around Kandahar, where some of the most 

violent fighting has occurred.95 Contractors have also 

been hired to overcome shortfalls created by the underfunding and downsizing of USAID, as well as the 

disbanding of the USIA and the Arms Control and 

Disarmament Agency (ACDA).96

Furthermore, this trend is accelerating. In December 2009, the Congressional Research Service (CRS) 

projected that the surge of 30,000 additional troops to 

Afghanistan would need to be accompanied by a corresponding surge of up to 56,000 additional private contractors. In advance of this contractor surge, the DoD’s 

census of late 2009 showed that contractors already 

outnumbered U.S. forces in Afghanistan, with their 

numbers rising during all of 2009 to a total of 104,101, 

compared with 113,731 in Iraq. Most of the contractors, or about 78,000 of them, are local nationals.97 The 

CRS study also notes that contractors currently make 

up approximately 69 per cent of DoD personnel in Afghanistan, representing the highest such percentage 

of any conflict in U.S. history.98 In fairness, this use 

of host-nation contractors clearly realizes some local 

economic benefits. However, this major dependence 

on contractors mainly serves as compelling evidence 

of the broader inadequacy of the U.S. Government’s 

existing resources and capabilities to take on one of 

these nation-building missions, let alone two at a time.
205

Viewing the issue from another perspective, the 

use of contractors also establishes an undesirable situation in which the contracted companies’ interest in 

continuing their lucrative contracts stands in direct opposition to the U.S. Government’s desire to finish the 

mission and go home. Furthermore, these contracted 

employees are not military personnel and, therefore, 

the terms of their employment come with numerous 

caveats, similar in many respects to the national caveats of some allies on the use of combat forces. The 

net effect of these caveats is that the actual value to 

the operations of the contracted employees can be 

significantly limited, depending upon the particular 

tactical circumstances. At the same time, the U.S. Government—and the contracted agencies, for that matter—has only a very limited pool from which to draw 

the personnel needed for these highly specialized 

contracted tasks. As a result, contractor services come 

at a remarkably expensive cost. Access to contractor 

salary figures is typically limited by the companies, 

but it was well known in Afghanistan that many contractors were making two or three times the salaries of 

comparable U.S. Government employees—including 

the troops who had to operate “outside the wire,” in 

harm's way—regardless of the tactical situation.

In that same vein, there are also legitimate questions about the value of the output the government 

has been receiving in exchange for these extremely expensive contracts. For example, in standing up the Afghan National Army and the corresponding Afghan 

Ministry of Defense, it was common practice for the 

U.S. contractors—who were mostly ex-U.S. military 

personnel anyway—to merely “cut and paste” documents from relevant DoD field manuals and other 

administrative documents. These contractors would 
206

then provide the Afghans copies of the cut and pasted 

documents, or streamlined versions of them, to be 

used as their own systems and procedures. 

Although there were other major factors at work 

as well, one of the reasons that the effort to develop 

the Afghan police lagged so far behind the development of the Afghan National Army was the fact that 

the U.S. military personnel and contractors with the 

police development mission did not have access to 

similar baseline institutional documentation to assist in their own efforts. Adding another set of challenges, the U.S. Government’s agreements with the 

contracted firms also typically feature convoluted supervisory relationships and funding arrangements. In 

many cases, these tangled agreements actually limit 

the U.S. Government’s own supervisors from exercising direct control over the contracted employees’ job 

performance, off-duty behavior, or basic employment 

parameters. These limits result in major inefficiency 

and ineffectiveness. 

In conclusion, the key three organizations’ cultures, existing core expertise, comparative resources, 

and even some career incentives are at odds with each 

other and the mission requirements of nation-building 

and irregular warfare. This situation carries with it a 

number of adverse consequences, while also increasing the structural constraints that currently thwart interagency success. The use of U.S. agencies in roles for 

which they are not well suited by mandate, resources, 

or expertise also distracts those agencies from their 

traditional roles in the U.S. Government, thus accepting unnecessary strategic and operational risks both at 

home and abroad. By turning to private contractors to 

make up for these major shortfalls, the United States 

has actually increased the risks associated with these 
207

missions, while achieving questionable results that 

have come at an exorbitant cost. Future strategic planning and resource allocation decisions must take into 

consideration these capability shortfalls, as well as the 

risks associated with contractor use. In short, strategic 

planners must do a better job of weighing the costs 

and the loss of strategic flexibility created by these extremely lengthy and resource-intensive nation-building and irregular warfare commitments.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 5

1. Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Opening Remarks before the 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Presenting the FY2009 International Affairs Budget Request, Washington, DC, February 13, 

2008, available from www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2008/02/100726.

htm.

2. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do 

and Why They Do It, New York: Basic Books, 1989, p. 91.

3. Amos A. Jordan et al., American National Security, 5th Ed., 

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, p. 105.

4. Wilson, pp. 40-42.

5. Ibid., p. 94.

6. Ibid., pp. 90-91, 93.

7. Ibid., pp. 40-42, 93-94.

8. Donald P. Warwick, A Theory of Public Bureaucracy: Politics, 

Personality, and Organization in the State Department, Cambridge, 

MA: Harvard University Press, 1975, p. 12.

9. Ibid., p. 13.

10. Ibid., pp. 14-15.
208

11. Ibid., pp. 18-19.

12. Ibid.

13. Ibid., p. 85.

14. Ibid., p. 86.

15. Ibid., p. 88.

16. Bryton Barron, Inside the State Department: A Candid Appraisal of the Bureaucracy, New York: Comet Press Books, 1956, p. 

11. 

17. Ibid., pp. 11-29.

18. Ibid., p. 62.

19. Ibid., p. 93.

20. Jordan, et al., pp. 107-108.

21. Ibid., p. 108.

22. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: Potomac, 2008, p. 139.

23. Matthew J. Morgan, A Democracy is Born: An Insider’s Account of the Battle Against Terrorism in Afghanistan, Westport, CT: 

Praeger, 2007, p. 53.

24. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos, New York: Penguin, 

2008, p. 194.

25. Morgan, p. 53.

26. Ibid., p. 54.

27. About USAID: USAID History, available from www.usaid.

gov/about_usaid/usaidhist.html.
209

28. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, Chicago, IL: University 

of Chicago Press, 2005 Ed., p. 138.

29. About USAID: A Record of Accomplishment, available from 

www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/accompli.html.

30. See the online organizational charts for State and USAID 

on their respective websites.

31. USAID Primer: What We Do and How We Do It, available 

from www.usaid.gov/about_usaid/primer.html.

32. USAID, Fragile States Strategy, Washington, DC: USAID, 

January 2005, p. 8.

33. U.S. Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2007-2012, Washington, DC: U.S. State Department, May 7, 2007, cover page.

34. Ibid., p. 5.

35. Ibid., p. 59.

36. Ibid.

37. Stanley A. McChrystal, COMISAF’S Initial Assessment, Kabul, Afghanistan: International Security Force Headquarters, August 30, 2009, pp. 1-2.

38. Ibid., pp. 2-21.

39. Hans Binnendijk and Stuart E. Johnson, eds., Transforming for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, Washington, DC: 

National Defense University Press, 2004, p. 110.

40. Scott R. Feil, “The Failure of Incrementalism: Interagency 

Coordination Challenges and Responses,” Chap. 9 in Joseph R. 

Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, eds., The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction 

Roles, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2007, pp. 289-290, available from www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.
210

41. The President of the United States, The National Security 

Strategy of the United States of America, Washington, DC: U.S. Government, March 2006.

42. Excerpt from Admiral Fallon’s statement before the Senate 

Armed Services Committee on May 3, 2007, available from www.

centcom.mil.

43. David Rhode and David E. Sanger, “How the ‘Good War’ 

in Afghanistan Went Bad,” The New York Times, August 12, 2007, 

pp. A1, 12-13.

44. U.S. Department of State, Doing Business in Afghanistan: 

A Country Commercial Guide for U.S. Businesses, Washington, DC: 

U.S. Government, 2007.

45. John Herbst, prepared statement for testimony before the 

House Committee on Armed Services, February 26, 2008. 

46. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Politics, Elections, and Government Performance, Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, CRS Report RS21922, August 28, 2009, summary.

47. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan 

After the Taliban, New York: Penguin, 2006, p. 151.

48. Dennis C. Jett, “Challenges in Support and Stability Operations: Why Each One is Different,” Chap. 1 in Cerami and Boggs, 

p. 14.

49. Ibid.

50. Feil, p. 14.

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Ibid., pp. 296-297.
211

55. Amos A. Jordan, et al., American National Security, 5th Ed., 

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, p. 109.

56. Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace 

with America’s Military, New York: Norton and Company, 2004, 

p. 45.

57. Fact Sheet: U.S. State Department Structure and Organization, 

available from dosfan.lib.uic.edu/ERC/about/fact_sheets/950526str.

html.

58. Jett, p. 14. 

59. Office of the Spokesman, Fact Sheet, Kabul, Afghanistan: 

U.S. Embassy, September 25, 2008, available from kabul.embassy.

gov/press_release_25_09.html.

60. Jett, p. 14. 

61. U.S. Department of State and the Broadcasting Board of 

Governors Office of Inspector General, Inspection of Embassy Kabul, Afghanistan, Washington, DC: State Department, OIG Report 

ISP-I-06-13A, January 18, 2006, p. 1.

62. Rashid, p. 174.

63. Ibid.

64. Stephen J. Flanagan and James A. Schear, eds., Strategic 

Challenges: America’s Global Security Agenda, Washington, DC: 

INSS/National Defense University Press, 2008, p. 143.

65. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “A New Plan for Afghanistan,” 

The Washington Post Weekly, June 29, 2009, pp. 7-8.

66. Chayes, pp. 150-151.

67. Ibid.

68. Ibid., p. 174.

69. Rhode and Sanger, pp. A1, 12-13.
212

70. USAID, At Freedom’s Frontiers: A Democracy and Governance 

Strategic Framework, Washington, DC: USAID, December 2005, 

pp. 10-11.

71. Report to Congressional Committees: Afghanistan Security, 

Washington, DC: Government Accountability Office, June 2008, 

p. 2.

72. Michelle Tan, “Training Pays,” The Army Times, October 

20, 2008.

73. Report to Congressional Committees: Afghanistan Security, p. 

2.

74. Nagl, pp. ix-x.

75. Astri Suhrke, “A Contradictory Mission? NATO from Stabilization to Combat in Afghanistan,” International Peacekeeping, 

Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2008, p. 222.

76. Ibid.

77. Nagl, p. xiii.

78. McChrystal, pp. 1-2.

79. Ibid.

80. Afghanistan Security: U.S. Programs to Further Reform Ministry of Interior and National Police Challenged by Lack of Military 

Personnel and Afghan Cooperation, GAO-09-280, Washington, DC: 

Government Accountability Office, March 2009, summary.

81. Feil, p. 296. 

82. Katzman, summary.

83. Rhode and Sanger, pp. A1, 12-13.

84. Ibid.
213

85. Christopher M. Blanchard, Afghanistan: Narcotics and U.S. 

Policy, Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, CRS 

7-5700, August 12, 2009, p. 8.

86. Feil, pp. 290-291. 

87. Ibid.

88. H. Allen Irish, “A ‘Peace Corps with Guns’: Can the Military be a Tool of Development?” Chap. 3 in Cerami and Boggs, 

eds., p. 60.

89. Secretary Robert M. Gates, National Military Strategy, 

Washington, DC: Department of Defense, June 2008, p. 6. 

90. Ibid., p. 17.

91. Ibid., p. 18.

92. Ibid., p. 17.

93. Zeb B. Bradford, Jr., and Frederic J. Brown, America’s 

Army: A Model for Interagency Effectiveness, Westport, CT: Praeger, 

2008, p. xiii.

94. Mark Cancian, “Contractors: The New Element of Military 

Force Structure,” Parameters, Vol. 38, No. 3, Autumn 2008, p. 62.

95. Walter Pincus, “Up to 56,000 More Contractors Likely for 

Afghanistan, Congressional Agency Says,” The Washington Post

online, December 16, 2009, available from www.washingtonpost.

com.

96. Bradford and Brown, p. xii.

97. August Cole, “U.S. Adding Contractors at Fast Pace,” The 

Wall Street Journal online Ed., December 2, 2009, available from 

www.wsj.com.

98. Pincus. 

215

CHAPTER 6

DISUNIFIED INTERAGENCY STRUCTURES,

PROCESSES, AND EFFORT

If we’re going to win, we have to fight this war differently. We’ve had a stovepiped approach to combat 

and to development, too. All that has to change.”

U.S. Brigadier General John Nicholson, Deputy Commander of NATO 

forces in southern Afghanistan, The 

Washington Post, March 14, 20091

As if the mismatch between strategy and agency 

resources were not challenging enough, the adverse 

effects of this strategic disjointedness are compounded 

by the fact that the U.S. Government’s systems for interagency integration are inadequate to the task. Specifically, existing interagency mechanisms are failing 

to coordinate and integrate U.S. Government resources and effort effectively—a major problem that stems 

primarily from the disjointedness of guidance and authority at the national strategic level—subsequently 

down to affect the theater-strategic, operational, and 

tactical levels of activity.2

 When coupled with ineffective organizational structures that make disjointed 

effort and an incoherence of vision the norm rather 

than the exception, these interagency failings have 

prevented any coherent implementation of the “whole 

of government” approaches needed to overcome the 

extensive and complex challenges of nation-building 

and irregular warfare. Instead, the lack of unified 

authority and fragmented organizational structures 

make every action a negotiation, as the existing interagency structures and processes are too weak to overcome these numerous impediments.
216

As a result of the general lack of authority to mandate cooperation or direct the operational allocation 

of other-agency resources, U.S. agencies have failed to 

achieve unity of vision, a common understanding of 

the problem, or an integrated and coordinated effort in 

their operations in Afghanistan. Adding to the problem, different players control different pots of money, 

with the definitive authority for resource allocation 

decisions remaining back in the United States rather 

than residing near the tip of the spear. And although 

these failures of the U.S. interagency process are commonly recognized by participants and observers alike, 

entrenched interests, personal ambitions, and competing agendas within the various agencies combine 

to stymie the prospects for positive change. Without 

question, the last few years have seen a marked increase in the emphasis and effectiveness of the interagency effort in Afghanistan, an improvement tied 

directly to the willingness of the senior agency and 

departmental leaders to improve the coordination 

and integration of effort across agency boundaries. 

However, with human nature being what it is, this 

coordination and integration of resources and effort 

is too important to be dependent upon the goodwill 

or chemistry of any particular set of senior leaders. It 

is important to review the factors that have combined 

to prevent the U.S. Government from achieving true 

unity of effort over most of this mission, since these 

factors will ultimately need to be addressed directly 

in order to meet the demands of irregular warfare and 

nation-building operations in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the future.
217

NO LACK OF GUIDANCE, BUT NOBODY’S IN 

CHARGE

Whether viewed at the strategic or operational 

levels of activity, there is no shortage of directives or 

coordinating mechanisms pertaining to interagency 

interaction. That is, neither a lack of guidance nor a 

scarcity of venues for interagency coordination and 

integration lies at the root of this problem, because 

there are more than enough presidential directives 

and interagency coordinating mechanisms already in 

place to make the national-level intent clear. In fact, a 

number of these directives are even focused specifically on the interagency management of reconstruction and stabilization operations, so a lack of guidance 

or venues in this particular area of national security 

activity is not the cause of the deficiencies, either. On 

the contrary, the problem is more one of quality than 

quantity. Not one of the various documents providing 

guidance or mechanisms for interagency coordination 

and integration actually puts any one leader, agency, 

or department in charge of any other. Therefore, the 

causes of the U.S. Government’s interagency failings 

are structural and jurisdictional in nature, with a variety of related factors thwarting the pursuit of true 

unity of effort from the start.

At the national strategic level, the last two decades 

have seen the publication of numerous directives and 

guiding documents related to interagency procedures 

and emphases. In May 1994, the Clinton administration issued Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-25: 

Administration Policy on Reforming Multilateral Peace 

Operations. This presidential directive designated 

the Department of Defense (DoD) as the lead federal 

agency for the funding and management of all U.S. 
218

agencies participating in United Nations (UN) peace 

operations, regardless of whether or not U.S. troops 

were involved.3 Drafted as a response to the changing 

security requirements emerging in the post-Cold War 

era, this document initiated a modern trend in which 

the DoD was increasingly seen as the lead vehicle for 

the management and execution of foreign policy. The 

document acknowledged the increasing number of 

U.S. interventions involving multiple agencies and 

departments of the U.S. Government, while proposing a draft framework for deciding when it was in the 

interests of the United States to participate in peacekeeping operations. 

In May 1997, the same administration published 

Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-56: Managing 

Complex Interagency Operations, a document that outlined new mechanisms for facilitating interagency 

coordination in peace and stability operations.4

 PDD56 was widely viewed as a response to the perceived 

failures in interagency coordination in Somalia, and 

codified the Clinton administration’s policy for managing complex interagency operations. The document 

outlined roles and responsibilities, while placing 

presidential emphasis on interagency coordination 

and integration.5

 In spite of this focused presidential 

emphasis, however, PDD-56 only addressed half the 

problem, since it mandated improved interagency coordination and planning without addressing the underlying shortfalls in the resources needed to facilitate 

those improvements.6 In similar fashion, in February 

of 2000 the administration issued Presidential Decision Directive (PDD)-71: Strengthening Criminal Justice 

Systems in Support of Peace Operations. This guidance 

assigned roles and responsibilities to federal agencies 

and departments related to enhancing civilian law 
219

enforcement capabilities in peace operations.7 Once 

again, the document assigned responsibilities without 

resources.

On February 13, 2001, only a few weeks after taking office, President George W. Bush issued National 

Security Presidential Directive (NSPD)-1: Organization 

of the National Security Council System.

8

 This document 

was notable for at least two reasons. First, the NSPD 

assigned a heightened role to the Vice President in 

national security affairs. Secondly, the document 

abolished all of the interagency working groups that 

had been established by the President’s predecessors. 

After the attacks of September 11, 2001 (9/11), the administration’s focus shifted toward crafting specific 

responses to the newly exposed security challenges. 

However, another significant change to the interagency landscape occurred in the summer of 2004 with 

the creation of the Office of Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, commonly called S/CRS. 

Housed within the State Department (State) and given 

specific responsibilities for coordinating reconstruction and stability operations, S/CRS has generally 

struggled to achieve relevance, compliance, support, 

and budgetary resources.9

 Of note, S/CRS published 

the Post Conflict Reconstruction Essential Tasks Matrix in 

April 2005, a remarkable compilation of the hundreds 

of complex tasks associated with nation-building, reconstruction, and stability operations. It is also worth 

noting that ultimately the Bush administration reinstated many of the interagency working groups that it 

had abolished at the start of the President’s first term.

As the situation in Iraq continued to deteriorate, 

the U.S. military was given specific guidance to become more engaged with the reconstruction and stabilization activities in that country. In response, in late 

November 2005, the DoD published DoD Directive 
220

3000.05: Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations. In a major 

shift from past policies and practices, the directive 

described stability operations as a “core U.S. military 

mission . . . to be given priority comparable to combat 

operations and to be explicitly addressed and integrated across all DoD activities.”10 In keeping with the 

presidential guidance reinforcing the role, this directive also established the U.S. military as the default organization for stability and reconstruction operations, 

probably the only feasible approach anyway given the 

lack of capacity among other agencies.11

Furthermore, DoD Directive 3000.05 also stipulated 

that in stability operations, or “military and civilian 

activities conducted across the spectrum from peace 

to conflict to establish or maintain order in States and 

regions,” the U.S. military was now formally assigned 

a role in helping with a variety of nontraditional development tasks. Among them, the DoD was also now 

required to help “rebuild indigenous institutions,” 

“revive or build the private sector,” and “develop representative government institutions.” The directive 

also asserted that DoD elements must be “prepared 

to work closely with relevant U.S. Departments and 

Agencies, foreign governments, and security forces.”12 Nation-building might remain undefined, but 

requirements that looked a lot like nation-building 

were rapidly becoming codified in policy. Reflecting 

DoD ambivalence for these missions, a September 

2009 reissuance of DoD Instruction 3000.05: Stability 

Operations places DoD clearly in a supporting role for 

development tasks.13

From an interagency perspective, the original DoD 

Directive 3000.05 directed that combatant commanders were to “engage relevant U.S. Departments and 
221

Agencies” and other intergovernmental and nongovernmental actors in their “operations planning, training, and exercising, as appropriate.”14 As has generally 

been the case with recent policy, the directive made no 

mention of additional personnel, training, equipment, 

or other resources that might be provided to carry out 

those expanded responsibilities. On December 1, 2005, 

United States Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) and 

S/CRS jointly issued The Draft Planning Framework for 

Reconstruction, Stabilization, and Conflict Transformation. This framework is aimed at introducing direct input from DoD planners into the development of strategic implementation plans for SSTR operations, with 

the goal of integrating that input into the planning by 

other agencies. 

Providing its own direct guidance for reconstruction and stability operations, the administration issued 

National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD)-44: Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction 

and Stabilization in December 2005.15 A significant document in terms of both scope and emphasis, NSPD44 established a reconstruction and stability policy 

coordination committee within the National Security 

Council (NSC). This NSPD also outlined the goals of 

promoting peace, democracy, and market economies, 

foreshadowing the National Security Strategy document 

that would follow just a few months later.16 In order to 

achieve those goals, NSPD-44 identified the S/CRS as 

the “focal point” to “coordinate and strengthen” U.S. 

agency efforts in support of reconstruction and stabilization operations.17 The document also assigned S/

CRS the responsibility for a wide variety of related activities, including strategy development, policy coordination among departments and agencies, the coordination of interagency processes, the preparation of 
222

options for decisionmakers, and the development of 

a strong civilian response capability, among others.18

On the other side of the equation, NSPD-44 directed other executive departments and agencies to coordinate with S/CRS during the budget formulation 

for reconstruction and stabilization activities, prior to 

submitting their respective budget requests to the Office of Management and Budget. These key agencies 

and departments were also directed to provide S/CRS 

with information regarding their existing capabilities, 

and to develop further “internal capabilities for planning and for resource and program management that 

can be mobilized in response to crises.”19 Each agency 

and department was likewise instructed to develop 

and provide to S/CRS supporting plans and pointsof-contact lists, and to make personnel available “on 

a non-reimbursable basis” to S/CRS “as appropriate 

and feasible.”20 Without question, the Bush administration had laid out an extensive and robust plan for 

enhancing interagency emphasis and effectiveness. 

However, while NSPD-44 outlined many requirements and responsibilities that would enable S/CRS 

to be the focal point for reconstruction and stability 

operations, the document fell short in several significant ways. First of all, neither NSPD-44 nor any complementary enabling legislation provided S/CRS with 

any significant funding or other resources to carry 

out its functions. Nor did NSPD-44 provide S/CRS 

with actual statutory leverage that it could apply to 

compel compliance among other agencies or departments. Similarly, NSPD-44 also contained no forcing 

functions, or mechanisms of accountability that forced 

other agencies and departments to demonstrate adherence with its requirements. Finally, while NSPD-44 

claimed to encompass the full spectrum of reconstruc-
223

tion and stability operations, the document’s focus is 

almost exclusively on stability operations, or security 

operations designed or established to maintain order 

in states and regions. In fact, neither DoD Directive 

3000.05 nor NSPD-44 included formal definitions for 

either nation-building or reconstruction operations, 

thus undermining the prospects for compliance or coherence of effort from the start.21

In August 2006, the DoD’s Joint Forces Command took this guidance a step further by drafting 

The Military Support to SSTR Operations, JOC Version 

2.0. This document expanded the definition of SSTR 

to include the enhancement of governance, economic 

development, and the rule of law, but it did so without delving into the details of how those goals were to 

be achieved.22 At about the same time, S/CRS began 

working in conjunction with the NSC to develop an 

initiative called the “Interagency Management System 

for Reconstruction and Stabilization,” or IMS. IMS operational concepts include three main working groups 

aimed at facilitating interagency responses to complex contingencies. These organizational structures 

include the Country Reconstruction and Stabilization 

Group (CRSG) at the national strategic level, Integration Planning Cells (IPC) for the theater-strategic 

level, and Advance Civilian Teams (ACT) at the operational and tactical levels.23 Work on these systems, 

including securing sufficient funding, personnel, and 

other-agency “buy-in” for their interagency activities, 

continues today.

In January of 2009, the three key organizations 

jointly published the U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, with input and contributions from each of 

the nine U.S. agencies and departments with roles and 

functions in counterinsurgency and other forms of ir-
224

regular warfare.24 The document is consistent with the 

other directives and guidelines, in that it avoids any 

serious engagement with the real challenges of interagency integration. For example, the guide notes that 

while “unity of effort is highly desirable,” it is also 

“not easily achieved, especially in the context of a coalition intervention operation.”25 The document also 

identifies the U.S. ambassador as the Chief of Mission 

and as the President’s personal representative to the 

host nation, noting that in having been “appointed by 

the President and confirmed by the Senate, the Ambassador has extraordinary decision-making authority as 

the senior U.S. official present.”26 The document also 

identifies the Country Team as “the central element 

of interagency coordination and execution in the foreign country.”27 Finally, the guide offers broad-brush 

guidelines for integrated interagency planning over 

two and a half pages of text.28

The reality, however, is much different. Personnel from the various agencies operating in a particular country generally choose to participate in otheragency plans or not depending on their own agendas 

and interests, as well as the guidance given them by 

their parent organizations. And while U.S. ambassadors have great influence over policy matters and 

wield significant authority related to the fact that they 

have the ear of the Secretary of State and (often) the 

President, ambassadors typically control very little in 

the way of significant budgetary authority. With these 

organizational realities in mind, the leaders of the 

various agencies and departments functioning within 

any major theater of operations are ultimately more 

concerned about the reactions of the leaders within 

their own agency hierarchies than they are with ambassadorial approval. 
225

Along similar lines, the Counterinsurgency Guide

describes the NSC as “the President’s principal forum 

for consultation with senior advisors and cabinet officials on national security and foreign policy matters.”29

The guide also asserts that “The NSC staff provides 

advice to the President with respect to the integration 

of . . . policies and manages the processes through 

which the President’s policies are coordinated and 

implemented.”30 Given the usual turf wars in the NSC 

over agency roles, jurisdictions, and resources, the 

discussions at the NSC level are most often focused 

on broad questions of resources and responsibilities, 

rather than aiming to resolve questions pertaining to 

the actual operational implementation of the council’s 

recommendations.

Shortly after the publication of the Counterinsurgency Guide, and only a few short weeks after taking 

office, the Obama administration signaled its intention to order an overhaul of the NSC. President Barack 

Obama suggested reforms that might include expanding NSC membership, while “increasing its authority 

to set strategy across a wide spectrum of international 

and domestic issues.”31 Building on the findings and 

recommendations of the Project for National Security 

Reform, these changes were first intended to eliminate 

backchannels to the President. Next, the reforms also 

aimed to strengthen the position of National Security 

Adviser, with the goal of enabling that individual to 

manage the discussions of national security and present consolidated recommendations to the President.32

After they were announced on February 13, 2009, 

however, the actual changes to the NSC structures 

were far less dramatic than had been suggested. The 

actual changes outlined in the Obama administration’s Presidential Policy Directive (PPD)-1: Organization 
226

of the National Security Council System included placing 

the Homeland Security Council underneath the NSC, 

and creating three new NSC directorates. These new 

directorates included one focused on cybersecurity, 

another focused on pandemics, and a “Global Engagement Directorate” intended to combine communications, foreign aid, diplomacy, and “domestic engagement and outreach.”33 Otherwise, the document left 

the Bush-era NSC organization largely in place.

So despite numerous directives emphasizing interagency cooperation, the U.S. departments and 

agencies have essentially been left to operate as they 

always have, since a lack of forcing functions in the 

various presidential directives means that the agencies are typically not held accountable for failing to 

comply with the interagency guidance. With these bureaucratic realities in mind, it is therefore not surprising at all that different agencies have committed to 

the NSPD and PDD requirements to varying degrees, 

with some making meaningful changes in their business practices and others merely paying lip service to 

change.34 At the same time, there are still major gaps 

in doctrine, resources, expertise, capabilities, and the 

statutory guidance that continue to limit the ability of 

the various organizations to comply with the NSPD 

and PDD requirements.

Lastly, since “stability operations are labor-intensive and land power-focused,” the DoD—and in 

particular the Army and Marine Corps—have a keen 

interest in seeing NSPD-44 and the S/CRS evolve 

successfully into a strong interagency coordinating 

framework.35 On the other hand, the other agencies 

and departments holding nation-building and irregular warfare responsibilities have far fewer incentives 

to push for this same integration of effort, along with 
227

far fewer resources to make it happen. As a result, 

these factors combine to undercut the prospects for 

truly effective interagency cooperation from the start. 

Likewise, since departmental authorities and appropriations are still managed agency-by-agency at the 

national level, NSPD-44 has effectively given S/CRS 

“all of the responsibility but none of the authority,” 

while DoD Directive 3000.05 has done something similar in the DoD. In spite of all of the published guidance to the contrary, at this point the U.S. Government’s interagency processes for national security still 

resemble a coalition of the willing among the various 

agencies. 

INEFFECTIVE STRUCTURES AND PROCESSES 

FOR INTERAGENCY INTEGRATION 

As a direct consequence of these weak interagency 

directives, the existing institutional procedures and 

mechanisms for interagency coordination and integration provide opportunities for interagency engagement without requiring any real results. Hampered by 

a general lack of statutory forcing functions or accountability mechanisms, systemic interagency weaknesses 

are apparent at both the strategic and operational 

levels of activity. Numerous venues for interagency 

coordination exist, but the success or failure of the efforts within these venues usually depends upon the 

particular force of will or the persuasive skills of the 

individual agency leader nominally placed in charge. 

Exacerbating these challenges, the prescribed interagency coordinating processes at the operational level 

are often convoluted and bottom-driven, rather than 

streamlined and directive in nature. Too often, these 

procedures are composed of rigidly bureaucratic rules 
228

that yield numerous products containing overwhelming detail, but come at the expense of any clear sense 

of mission focus or priority.

This problem is much the same at the national strategic level, as well, where the actions within the NSC 

and in other strategic-level interagency coordination 

venues are constrained by jurisdictional questions, 

competing agency agendas, and 1- and 2-year budget 

cycles. These short-run budget horizons also prevent 

any coherent planning for nation-building and irregular warfare missions, which typically take much longer. In terms of basic organizational incentives, promotion processes still belong to the parent agencies 

and departments. Accordingly, it is much easier for 

the participants in the interagency process to say no to 

the leaders of other agencies than it is to deny leaders 

further up the chain in their own parent organizations. 

Recognizing these fundamental institutional shortcomings, the 9/11 Commission highlighted a lack of 

interagency coherence as one of the major contributors to the U.S. Government’s ineffective performance 

in the period that led up to the attacks on the United 

States in 2001. 

In Afghanistan specifically, the existing interagency procedures have fallen far short of what is needed 

to carry out nation-building and irregular warfare operations effectively. Left to exercise their own discretion, the various agencies and departments and their 

respective leaders disagree about desired end-states, 

and these organizations then pursue their own visions, because no one agency has sufficient leverage 

or authority to compel any other agency to follow its 

lead. As a result of these independent agendas, visions, and operating practices, the overall effort is representative of political scientist John Kingdon’s com-
229

pelling description of American bureaucratic practices 

in general. That is, the U.S. Government’s mission in 

Afghanistan suffers from a disunity of effort because 

“nobody leads anybody else.”36

Corroborating this perspective, Ambassador 

James Dobbins served as the U.S. representative to the 

Northern Alliance when the invasion began in October 

2001. From the start, Ambassador Dobbins expressed 

serious concerns about the feasibility of the organization of the U.S. mission, since the arrangement gave 

State its statutory leading role in the conduct of U.S. 

affairs but relied upon the DoD for almost all of the assets used to carry out the operations.37 In his view, the 

organizational arrangements represented “an abdication of White House responsibility” that would lead 

to significant problems.38 Ambassador Dobbins also 

described his single most frustrating experience in 

Afghanistan as his inability to get a basic interagency 

agreement on how the United States should compensate innocent Afghans who were victims of American 

firepower.39

Strategic-Level Interagency Structures. 

At the strategic level of national security affairs, 

the formal organizational structure for conducting the 

interagency coordination and integration of foreign 

policy in the executive branch is the NSC, created by 

the National Security Act of 1947. By statute, the NSC 

literally refers to the President, the Vice President, the 

Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of State, and a few 

other Cabinet-level officials, with the Director of the 

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Chairman, 

Joint Chiefs of Staff, serving as advisors.40 With this 

senior membership in mind, it is a bit of a stretch to 
230

claim that the NSC truly integrates anything, as the actual process of working out the details of interagency 

coordination ordinarily happens at levels well below 

the Principals Committee (PC). Ironically, the modern 

stovepiping of effort and information that plagues the 

U.S. Government today was created in part by that 

same National Security Act of 1947. This act intentionally established a strong Secretary of Defense position, 

as a move aimed at overcoming the numerous weaknesses within the coordination and integration of the 

various branches of the U.S. military. 

Since its inception, however, the structures and influence of the NSC have shifted with each successive 

presidency since Truman, depending upon the particular President’s personal intentions. While there are 

decisionmaking processes that correspond to particular routine or recurring decisions, in general the decisionmaking process for any one issue can be ad hoc 

and highly particularized.41 Intended originally to be 

an honest broker among the national security agencies 

represented within it, the NSC has instead evolved 

into a policymaking and policy executing body that 

operationalizes the President’s policy choices.42 In this 

role, the NSC—especially the National Security Advisor and the 225 members of the NSC staff—serves 

as an institutional guardian for the national security 

strategies, as well as other strategic national security 

products.43

As a snapshot of the processes and products that 

characterize the organizational procedures of the 

NSC, administrations generally use the national security strategy and other NSC products, both to express 

broad national intent and to give specific guidance to 

the various agencies of the government. The drafts of 

the national security strategy and other similar NSC 
231

documents are typically produced by Policy Coordination Committees (PCC) within the NSC itself.44 At 

times de-emphasized during the Bush administration, 

these policy coordination committees are interagency 

working groups. Some of them are organized by geographic region, while others are established by functional area. Each committee includes senior agency 

officials and subject matter experts in those particular 

regions or functional areas.45

In the particular case of the national security strategy, the products of the various policy coordination 

committees are then combined into the NSS draft, representing the consensus of those committees. The draft 

is then submitted to the Deputies Committee, which 

is an assembly of senior department deputies that 

serves as the “senior sub-Cabinet interagency forum.”

46 In the Deputies Committee, these senior agency officials review the draft strategy to ensure that agency 

concerns are met. Once the draft NSS passes this review, it is then forwarded to the Principals Committee for final review and ratification, with the modern 

PC consisting of the Cabinet-level leaders from State, 

the DoD, Treasury, the National Security Agency, the 

Director of National Intelligence, and the Chairman, 

Joint Chiefs of Staff.47

As noted, while the NSC serves as the honest broker for the interagency process and for strategy formulation, there are no specific rules telling the NSC 

how to perform this interagency adjudication function.48 Accordingly, the roles and functions of the NSC 

vary significantly from administration to administration. This lack of clarity in NSC operating practices 

often exacerbates the already formidable challenges 

of dealing with different organizational cultures, organizational interpretations of presidential guidance, 
232

and jurisdictional and resource parochialism.49 With 

the ad hoc nature of the organization in mind, the 

NSC’s performance can be viewed as uneven at best; 

its organizational culture and structures remain tied 

mostly to the role and resources assigned to it by the 

sitting President. 

For example, during the Truman administration, 

the NSC was staffed by career civil servants. In stark 

contrast, President Dwight Eisenhower equipped the 

NSC with systems and processes adapted from his experience in military organizations, staffing the council 

with mainly military professionals and participating 

in weekly information and decision meetings. The 

Eisenhower model also featured a Planning Board 

and an Operations Control Board (OCB), with the first 

for planning and the second to oversee operations.50

Upon succeeding Eisenhower, President John Kennedy reduced both the size of the NSC staff and its level 

of influence, staffing it with political appointees, while 

preferring to manage national security affairs within 

his inner circle. 

Subsequent administrations saw President Richard Nixon use a strong NSC model, with Henry Kissinger in the lead as both the National Security Adviser 

and as Secretary of State. President Ronald Reagan 

also employed a strong NSC model, but one staffed 

to enable operations to be controlled from the White 

House. The first President George Bush chose to use 

the NSC primarily to formulate policy.51 From an interagency perspective, the most significant changes 

made by President Bush in his NSPD-1 were the centralizing of decisionmaking authority higher in the 

NSC chain, increasing the role of the Vice President 

in national security affairs, and dissolving the existing Interagency Working Groups (IWG). The Bush-era 
233

guidance specifically called for dismantling the IWGs, 

as well as “all other existing NSC interagency groups, 

ad hoc bodies, and executive committees.”52 Partly in 

response to 9/11 and the demands of Afghanistan and 

Iraq, however, eventually the administration reinstituted most of the IWGs.

In addition to the NSC, there are a number of other 

national-level interagency coordinating activities. In 

recognition of the obvious national-level interagency 

shortfalls exposed by a number of recent national security events, other major initiatives have been undertaken in the past decade. As a primary example, the 

creation of S/CRS in State in 2004 assigned this office 

a variety of tasks of an interagency flavor. Among 

other roles, S/CRS is responsible for conducting interagency planning for reconstruction and stabilization missions, coordinating with relevant agencies to 

develop interagency contingency plans, monitoring 

political instability worldwide, and taking steps to 

ensure that training and education of civilian personnel is adequate and carried out.53 A few years later, 

the Civilian Stabilization Initiative was approved as 

part of the FY2008 supplemental appropriation. This 

initiative includes the Civilian Response Corps, with 

separate Active and Standby components aimed at 

creating an interagency pool of reconstruction and 

stabilization experts.54

Other recent initiatives have included the creation 

of seven new reconstruction and stabilization training 

courses being offered to military and civilians at the 

Foreign Service Institute, along with the creation of 

the U.S. Government Planning Framework for R&S and 

Conflict Transformation and the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework, each approved in July 2008.55 S/

CRS and the Civilian Response Corps (CRC) were 
234

authorized funds under the FY2009 National Defense 

Authorization Act, thus reinforcing the assignment of 

S/CRS as the lead office for coordinating interagency 

responses to reconstruction and stabilization missions. 

As a complementary step, the Interagency Management System for Reconstruction and Stabilization was 

approved in March 2007, creating a three-tiered system to manage interagency planning and operations.56

Expanding on the description of these major initiatives, IMS is a three-tiered planning and operations 

system aimed at facilitating “whole of government” 

responses to national security crises. It includes the 

Washington-based Country Reconstruction and Stabilization Group (CRSG), intended as a resource to 

assist in planning and operations functions at the 

national level. In turn, the Integration Planning Cell 

(IPC) represents a set of interagency experts who can 

deploy to a theater-level headquarters and assist in 

synchronizing civil-military planning and operations. 

Finally, Advance Civilian Teams (ACT) aid a particular country’s ambassador with integration, coordination, planning, resource allocation, operations, knowledge management, and strategic communications.57

The CRC consists of 250 generalists who are available for rapid response and can be deployed to assist 

in reconstruction and development operations within 

48 hours of notification. The plan for the CRC also calls 

for the augmentation of this core group by 2,000 additional civilian agency experts, who will be deployable 

within 30 days. Ultimately, the CRC will also have 

available another 2,000 reserve members from outside 

U.S. governmental agencies. These reserve members 

are projected to be deployable within 60 days, with 

each having some specific area of reconstruction and 

development expertise.58 At present, the CRC initia-
235

tive is funded for 250 personnel in its Active Component and 600 personnel in the Standby Reserve.

Although these initiatives are promising in many 

ways, they also have a number of shortfalls. Among 

these shortfalls is the fact that there is still no unified 

operating system for the U.S. Government and, given 

the scope of the theater requirements, these resources 

are still quite limited. Likewise, these initiatives still 

feature very limited civilian capacity, a lack of specialized training, no common repository for capturing and 

applying lessons as they are learned, and very limited 

funding to support rapid response deployment.59 Additionally, other shortfalls of these measures include 

a lack of operator-level personnel to build actual capacity and to mentor the host nation personnel, since 

these personnel are intended to serve as higher-level 

planners. Another challenge to the viability of the initiative comes in the volunteer and reserve nature of 

these professionals. That is, any reserve force comes 

with distinct challenges in terms of the ability to predict and coordinate the availability of the individual 

personnel—a decided disadvantage when compared 

with an established, standing development corps. Finally, the congressional support for this initiative to 

date has been comparatively limited, with the “bridge 

fund” for Fiscal Year (FY)2010 set at $40 million. This 

sum is inadequate to the tasks required and the needs 

of the mission in Afghanistan, let alone any other contingencies. 

Theater- and Operational-Level Interagency 

Guidance and Structures. 

The DoD has keen institutional interests in the success of these missions, and the Department also en-
236

joys a major advantage in terms of its planning capabilities, with more than 20,000 well-trained planners 

working in the Pentagon alone. When this human 

capital is contrasted with the several hundred planners working altogether among the other organizations, it should come as no surprise that the DoD 

has published far more guidance related to theaterstrategic and operational-level interagency structures 

and procedures than the other U.S. departments and 

agencies combined. As representative samples of this 

published guidance, the U.S. Government’s comprehensive Counterinsurgency Manual encourages interagency cooperation but provides no rigorous means 

for achieving it. For its own part, State has emphasized publishing operational-level documents such as 

its Doing Business in Afghanistan: A Country Commercial 

Guide for U.S. Companies, and other similar pamphlets 

and guides. These documents are consistent with 

State’s culture and its perception of its own mission in 

Afghanistan, but are neither integrated into the broader U.S. nation-building effort nor realistic in light of 

conditions on the ground.60

For its own part, the DoD has produced a wide variety of publications and field manuals, which address 

the interagency challenges at the theater-strategic and 

operational levels of activity. As the core document 

that establishes the baseline for U.S. military forces, 

Joint Publication 1-0: Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the 

United States claims to provide a bridge between policy and doctrine by outlining the goals and principles 

that inform the employment of our nation’s armed 

forces.61 This doctrine identifies unified action as a key 

enabler for achieving the jointness that underpins the 

pursuit of specific U.S. strategic objectives, as well as 

broader applications of U.S. foreign policy. As defined 
237

by the publication, “unified action” refers to the goal 

of achieving a unity of vision and effort among a wide 

variety of governmental and nongovernmental actors, 

with each having their own agendas, interests, and resources that they bring to situations relevant to U.S. 

national interests.62

Extending these themes to the operational level, 

the DoD’s Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations, elaborates upon the JP 1-0 discussion of “unified action” 

and identifies “unity of effort” as the result of effective 

unified action.63 The publication also introduces the 

concept of the “lead federal agency” (LFA) and likewise speaks generally to the requirements for coordination and integration amid the challenges associated 

with those operations. The Army’s corresponding 

Field Manual 3-0: Operations, addresses peace operations, including peacekeeping, peacemaking, peace 

enforcement, peace building, and conflict prevention, 

as varieties of joint military operations short of conventional warfare.64 The manual also provides examples of irregular warfare operations, including foreign 

internal defense, support to insurgency, counterinsurgency, combating terrorism, and unconventional 

warfare.65 Although this publication gives little in the 

way of detail related to interagency operations, the 

field manual does link stability tasks directly to State’s 

post-conflict reconstruction and stabilization technical sectors.66 DoD Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operation 

Planning is equally vague, devoting all of three-anda-half pages to interagency planning considerations.67

In fact, the publication highlights the joint force commander’s (JFC) likely lack of leverage, noting that “In 

the absence of a formal command structure, JFCs may 

be required to build consensus to achieve unity of effort.”68 JP 5-0 also introduces the concepts of the State-
238

provided political adviser (POLAD), a brief annex for 

Interagency Coordination, and the Joint Interagency 

Coordination Group (JIACG), a theater-strategic level 

venue for interagency coordination.69

Along the same lines, there are various supporting joint publications and field manuals that elaborate 

upon the mechanisms available to commanders at 

the theater-strategic level and below to facilitate interagency coordination. These manuals include FM 

3-07: Stability Operations (2008); JP 3-08: Interagency, 

Intergovernmental Organization, and Nongovernmental 

Organization Coordination during Joint Operations, I and

II (2006); JP 3-33: Joint Task Force Headquarters (2007); 

JP 3-57: Civil-Military Operations (2008); and the Commander’s Handbook for the Joint Interagency Coordination Group (2007). In sum, there is no lack of doctrinal 

guidance or structures for the interagency process on 

the military side of the equation, and each of these 

publications makes some reference to interagency coordination and integration.

Reflecting the fact that the military has no statutory leverage to compel compliance or even cooperation 

from the other agencies in question, however, each 

manual also has in common the fact that they are each 

long on the “what” of interagency coordination and 

very short on the “how.” That is, in each case the commander is largely left to rely upon hope or goodwill 

to bring about interagency coordination, since there 

is nothing in the way of command authority or any 

other real leverage available to compel that cooperation. Even the well regarded FM 3-24: Counterinsurgency Field Manual, for all of its merits, suffers from the 

same authority gap and thus glosses over the problem 

by optimistically highlighting Civil-Military Operations Centers and other operational and tactical-level 
239

interagency venues as offering opportunities for integration.70

The period since the passage of the GoldwaterNichols Act of 1986 has seen the military make dramatic strides toward jointness, or an interoperability 

and commonality of effort in the execution of security operations. But while the military’s own doctrine 

charges the DoD with embracing the goal of unified 

action as a major principle of its mission execution, 

this same doctrine falls far short in actually operationalizing that goal across U.S. agencies. That is, it 

intuitively makes sense for the military professional 

to extend the idea of jointness across agency boundaries when confronted with missions that focus on other 

nonmilitary instruments of national power, but joint 

doctrine cannot provide specific guidance as to how 

that interagency reach should occur.

The Special Case of the Provincial Reconstruction 

Team.

Created as an operational-level organization aimed 

at overcoming the interagency obstacles to success in 

nation-building and irregular warfare, the Provincial 

Reconstruction Team (PRT) deserves special attention. 

PRTs are ad hoc interagency organizations with a focus 

on local economic and governmental development. A 

typical American team is led by a military officer and 

has about 80 personnel assigned to it altogether. The 

American teams usually include representatives from 

State, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), 

the U.S. Agency for International Development 

(USAID), Afghan government officials, and Afghan 

police, though in many cases the personnel from the 

other-than-DoD agencies are contractors.71 The PRTs 
240

were created with three goals in mind, including providing a safe environment in which U.S. agencies and 

international development organizations could operate, “strengthening the Afghan central government’s 

reach,” and facilitating reconstruction in Afghanistan.72 From the beginning, the American-led PRTs in 

Afghanistan have been largely left to themselves to organize and operate, receiving little monitoring, guidance, or accountability from the nominal International 

Security Assistance Force (ISAF) supervisory chain.73

As a nondoctrinal concept, the PRTs were not part 

of the military’s original plan going into the mission 

in Afghanistan, and so were not actually initiated for 

more than a year after the initial stages of the operations. The first PRT began operation in February 2003 

in Gardez. By October 2005, however, there were 22 

PRTs operating across Afghanistan, with 12 of them 

led by American personnel and the others by coalition 

partners.74 It was not until 2006 that NATO pledged to 

place PRTs in each of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Even 

as those additional PRTs were formed, however, the 

national caveats placed on the other-than-American 

PRTs by their home governments were severe enough 

to limit their range and effectiveness substantially.75

While much of the literature on the PRTs to date 

has focused on their positive contributions to regional 

stability and development, the operation of the PRTs 

has also revealed a number of obstacles to effective 

interagency cooperation embedded within their structure and organization. Among other issues, a firstorder challenge for the PRTs has been “the lack of 

clear guidelines and goals for key PRT personnel.”76

While the PRTs do provide a venue for interagency 

coordination at the operational and tactical levels, in 

truth the PRTs have varied widely in their levels of 
241

effectiveness, cohesion, and coherence. For example, 

a very senior member of ISAF indicated that he did 

not believe that he or other ISAF leaders could push 

the PRTs’ efforts in a direction consistent with ISAF’s 

specific lines of operations, in spite of ISAF’s nominal command authority. Instead, he felt that the PRT 

members’ ultimate loyalties resided with their parent 

U.S. agencies or their home governments.77 In line with 

this assertion, State and USAID personnel assigned to 

the American-led PRTs “reported directly to the U.S. 

embassy in Kabul on the local government’s suitability and capacity for development projects.”78

Reinforcing this point, my own experience showed 

it was clear to all participants in the interagency process 

that any agreements reached in those venues would 

ultimately have to be approved by the parent organizations, whether they were U.S. Central Command 

(USCENTCOM) and the DoD, the State Department 

headquarters in Washington, or other agency leaders 

far from the tip of the spear. Furthermore, these jurisdictional challenges were exacerbated by the heavy 

concentration of civilian contractors employed in these 

operational activities, since the supervisors from the 

contractors’ company headquarters and various contracting provisions added another convoluted layer of 

bureaucracy to the mix. These leaders and the limits of 

the company contracts must be accommodated before 

operational plans and decisions can be finalized.

Corroborating this mixed assessment of PRT effectiveness, a comprehensive Rand study in 2008 found 

that the quality of performance among the PRTs varied widely, depending upon the makeup of the team 

and the approach used to facilitate reconstruction and 

development. The study contrasted a British-led PRT 

in Mazar-e-Sharif that was very effective in mediat-
242

ing intertribal conflicts and in completing construction projects, with a German-led team in Konduz 

that rarely left its secure forward operating base.79

The study also noted that these same variations were 

found among American-led and NATO-led teams, 

and that a common shortcoming of the teams was that 

most “were dominated by soldiers, many of whom 

had little or no development experience.”80 The study 

also cited a number of other problems that commonly 

hampered PRT performance. Among these were the 

unwillingness of civilian agency personnel to serve 

in non-permissive areas, the typically short duration 

of civilians’ tours of duty, and a widespread lack of 

knowledge of Afghan culture and the dynamic of the 

local areas in which the teams operated.81 The study finally noted that while the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had been able to place PRTs in most 

major Afghan cities, the rural areas—the real center 

of mass of the Afghan challenge—remained almost 

wholly uncovered.82

Viewing these problems from inside the teams, the 

other-than-DoD agency personnel who participated 

in the PRTs identified their own set of obstacles standing in the way of effective interagency coordination. 

Echoing the concern of others about the lack of guidance and a common set of goals, the PRT members 

noted that the civilian agency personnel had “little understanding of the specific role they were expected to 

fulfill.”83 The members also cited the “rigid militaryoriented structure of the teams” as a further hindrance 

to PRT effectiveness.84 Regarding the last point, by 

agreement State and USAID personnel are supposed 

to lead the PRT on political and reconstruction issues, 

with the military leader taking charge of security 

activities. However, the State and USAID report as-
243

serted that the “PRT culture, people, and resources are 

predominantly military.” 85 The State and USAID personnel also reported other obstacles to effective interagency coordination on the PRTs, among them, “poor 

tour synchronization and team deployment policies,” 

“considerable personnel gaps,” “poorly established 

team member relationships,” and “periods of relative 

disjointedness.”86

Based on its personnel’s experience gleaned from 

service on the PRTs, USAID published Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: An Interagency Assessment, in June 2006. In the report, the agency summarized the substantive issues that would have to be 

addressed to make the PRTs more effective. Echoing 

some of the same challenges that undermine the interagency process at the national level, these issues 

included:

• a need for “guidance that clearly outlines the 

mission, roles, responsibilities, and authority of 

each participating department or agency”;

• a need for “the U.S. Embassy and [U.S. military] to reinvigorate an in-country interagency 

coordinating body that articulates how national 

programs and PRT efforts fit into broader U.S. 

foreign policy objectives”;

• a need for DoD-centered guidance that would 

“direct U.S. PRT commanders to incorporate 

non-DoD representatives into PRT strategy development and decisionmaking”;

• a need to strengthen “U.S. PRT management 

and information systems”;

• a call to improve “PRT access to funds and capabilities”; and,

• a need for non-DoD agencies to receive dedicated funding and training.87
244

Noting that the PRT concept is “most appropriate 

where there is a mid-range of violence (that is) not 

so acute that combat operations predominate,” the 

report asserts that “PRT assets and funding must be 

tailored to specific cultural and security contexts [and 

feature] specialized skills other than those held by 

many military and civilian officers.”88 The study then 

described three other major obstacles to the PRTs’ potential for success. These obstacles include a common 

lack of understanding of respective agency cultures, 

missions, and capabilities; a lack of language and cultural training appropriate to the PRTs’ specific areas 

of operations; and “inadequate staffing and resources 

provided by the civilian agencies.”89 With this analysis in mind, it is clear that there is yet much room for 

growth in the PRT concept. These other-than-DoD 

perspectives also demonstrate that the use of the DoD 

as a proxy for genuine “whole of government” approaches to reconstruction and nation-building brings 

with it both advantages and consequential disadvantages. In a sense, these ad hoc organizations represent 

a microcosm of the broader interagency challenges 

that remain.

Recognizing these shortcomings, leaders in Afghanistan have recently set in motion a variety of 

other operational-level initiatives aimed at improving 

interagency coordination. These initiatives have included the establishment of a new military command 

to bring all U.S. military forces under the authority of 

one commander to achieve unity of command. This 

command element is called U.S. Forces-Afghanistan 

(USFOR-A).90 In November 2007, a police reform initiative called “Focused District Development” was 

begun, eventually becoming a vehicle for synchroniz-
245

ing economic development, rule of law development, 

reconstruction, and police reform in targeted police 

districts, with a goal of completing all districts as 

soon as possible. Along the same lines, NATO’s Regional Command-South has created a Civil-Military 

Planning Cell to facilitate a comprehensive regional 

approach to operations and development that “promotes the primacy of governance and development in 

all planning and operations.”91 In November 2008, the 

U.S. Embassy Kabul established an Integrated CivilMilitary Action Group that works for the Executive 

Working Group and consists of all the major deputies 

of the various agencies at work in Afghanistan.92 Likewise, ISAF initiated the “Action District Program” to 

increase Afghan, USFOR-A, and United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) coordination, with pilot districts identified and operations 

beginning in the summer of 2009.93

In spite of all of these promising developments, 

however, some serious national-level impediments to 

interagency effectiveness obviously remain in place. 

As one simple indicator, the DoD functional and geographic combatant commands do not align with State’s 

geographic and functional organizational structures. 

Furthermore, the various agencies and departments 

have taken no steps to synchronize their overseas tour 

assignment practices, so rapid personnel turnover 

continues to run counter to the Afghan cultural norms 

of relationships and trust. This lack of continuity also 

means that agencies are continually relearning the 

same lessons, while revisiting the same decisions and 

redoing the same tasks. The same conflicting career 

incentives remain in place, and the lack of any true 

forcing functions that mandate the integration of effort still allows the agencies to continue to use their 

own disjointed, internal metrics of success. 
246

As a result, the U.S. Government is still struggling 

to get its arms around these interagency challenges. 

There is still no common agency-to-agency language, 

no shared understanding of the problem, no universal metrics for measuring progress, nor any clearly 

understood set of statutory guidelines that delineates 

specific responsibilities among the various U.S. actors 

at work within Afghanistan. As one indicator of these 

remaining shortfalls, in June 2009, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report that 

recommended to Congress that it make any additional 

funding for the Afghan mission contingent upon the 

“completion of a coordinated, detailed plan for the 

ANSF [Afghan National Security Force], including a 

sustainment strategy.”94 This recommendation was 

based on the GAO’s assessment that State and the 

DoD had failed to comply with the agency’s exact 

same findings and recommendations in 2005, meaning 

that about 4 years had passed without the creation of 

“a coordinated, detailed Defense and State plan with 

near- and long-term resource requirements.”95 For all 

of the years of hard work that had gone into improving interagency coordination—and Afghanistan—the 

underlying causes of interagency dysfunction remain 

in place, rooted in human nature, misaligned bureaucratic incentives, convoluted jurisdictions, and mismatched resources. There is still much work to do.

THE RESULTS: DISUNITY OF EFFORT

The disunity of effort that stems from the fragmented authority and ineffective interagency processes is demonstrated in many ways. Projects are 

undertaken where they are needed the least, as the 

other-than-DoD agencies and departments cannot op-
247

erate in non-permissive security environments. Often 

ignoring the regions that need their attention the most, 

these agencies frequently complete projects that are 

only partially resourced, such as constructing schools 

without providing the teachers needed to staff them, 

building courthouses or jails where no trained judges 

or prosecutors exist, or undertaking other similarly 

short-sighted projects that make sense only if one’s 

metric for success is counting how many “projects 

have been completed.” 

Consistent with its own capabilities and culture, 

the DoD likewise is often guilty of focusing disproportionately upon security-centered metrics. This narrow perspective then limits the development of the 

elements of the rule of law; the creation of institutions 

of national and local governance; the growth of a legitimate economy; and the crushing impact of widespread illiteracy; among others. Needless to say, all 

of these tasks are of central importance to the nationbuilding and counterinsurgency that sit at the heart of 

the mission in Afghanistan today. It is not all that surprising that these critical aspects are overshadowed 

when the military’s main metric for success to date 

has been “trained army and police units fielded.” Of 

course, the ISAF Campaign Strategy reflects a focused 

effort to work at these nonmilitary tasks in parallel to 

the security effort. At the same time, even the objectives that correspond to the ISAF lines of operations 

are expressed mainly in terms of population security 

and ANSF development. It is what we do.

In any event, rather than pulling together, U.S. 

agencies are still essentially free to opt out when they 

dislike a decision or disagree with another agency’s 

end-state vision or interpretation of guidance. As specific examples of this disunity of effort, a participant 
248

in the interagency and nongovernmental operations 

in Afghanistan noted a “devastating rift between the 

Defense Department and State Department” early 

on in the mission that saw the senior leaders of both 

organizations in Afghanistan rarely interacting with 

one another at all.96 This same observer described the 

U.S. military and CIA working at cross-purposes to 

one another in Kandahar as the Taliban fell, issuing 

orders that contradicted one another while executing 

apparently conflicting policies.97 Others noted that the 

CIA operated on its own much of the time, and that 

the agency was even given control over the processes 

of awarding aid and reconstruction contracts.98 As a 

particularly telling example of this lack of coherence, 

President Karzai strongly advocated the rebuilding of 

the ring road highway as a means of enhancing the 

Afghan economy in support of the emerging Afghan 

government, but USAID countered with its own desire to undertake other more “local” projects.99

Taking a more comprehensive view, the evidence 

is not much better. Applying its customary metrics 

of “projects completed” and “aid delivered,” USAID claims that its programs have been effective in 

Afghanistan, citing the construction of 1,600 miles of 

road, the reconstruction or construction of more than 

650 schools, and the training of thousands of civil servants as evidence of their success.100 However, from 

a broader view, it is far less clear that these projects 

have been integrated effectively into the overarching 

U.S. national security objectives for the country. For 

example, in 2004, USAID awarded a $135 million contract to Chemonics International to rehabilitate the agriculture industry in the poppy-producing Helmand 

province, but the project was abandoned when there 

were no U.S. Soldiers available to protect the work-
249

ers.101 In 2005, a canal cleaning project was similarly 

abandoned when the Taliban killed five workers. That 

same year, USAID and the British aid ministry were 

able to spend only $4 million out of $119 million set 

aside for development—and all of that for salaries—

due to security concerns and contracting difficulties.102

In 2006, after being spurred by presidential interest 

and only after Dole Foods decided the project was 

not feasible, USAID wasted several million dollars in 

reconstruction aid on a commercial farm project near 

Mazar-e-Sharif before realizing that the land was too 

dry and salty to support agriculture. This fact was already well known to the local Afghans.103

Upon becoming the Obama administration’s lead 

action officer for Afghanistan, and as a USAID veteran 

of the Vietnam War-era himself, Richard C. Holbrooke 

ordered a complete overhaul of the USAID effort in 

Afghanistan. In fact, after surveying USAID’s efforts 

to that point, he cited an urgent need to revamp what 

he saw as a poorly coordinated program that “wasn’t 

just a waste of money [but] was actually a benefit to 

the enemy.”104 Identifying a variety of similar challenges within the military upon taking command of 

the operations in 2009, General Stanley McChrystal 

reorganized the ISAF organizational structure, noting that “ISAF’s subordinate headquarters must stop 

fighting separate campaigns.”105 As recently as February 2010, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin travelled to Afghanistan, describing 

as “inexcusable” his finding that there was still a major shortage of instructors to train the Afghan security 

forces, in spite of the administration having put ANSF 

training at the forefront of its Afghan strategy.106 This 

shortage in trainers remains today.
250

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The disunity of effort that results from ineffective 

coordinating mechanisms and the underlying disjointedness of U.S. strategy represents just one more way 

in which U.S. Government means are disconnected 

from its strategic interests, ends, and ways. As a direct 

consequence of this disjointedness at the operational 

level, various host-nation leaders and members of 

the international community are able to “exploit the 

seams” exposed by these fragmented organizational 

structures, taking advantage of this situation by going 

from agency to agency until they get the decision or 

the resources they want. As important as our allies’ 

contributions have been to the effort in Afghanistan, 

the truth is that the United States has dwarfed the 

other nations in terms of commitments of manpower 

and funding. So with this reality in mind, it is vitally 

important that the U.S. agencies and departments act 

coherently if the United States is to provide the vehicle 

for the international community’s collective efforts to 

improve the situation.

In sum, the U.S. Government cannot realize true 

success in nation-building or irregular warfare operations without achieving unified action. The world’s 

ongoing transition from an international system to a 

global one with significant nonstate and transnational 

actors will only magnify the complexity of the security challenges that our nation will face in the years 

to come. Furthermore, this disunity of effort and ineffective interagency coordination is not limited to Afghanistan, just as it is also not limited to nation-building and irregular warfare operations. One only has 

to look at the U.S. Government’s uneven response to 

Hurricane Katrina, its ongoing reorganization of the 
251

intelligence community, or the faltering reorganization of the Department of Homeland Security, to find 

other examples.107 Our nation has many incentives to 

take action. 

Nevertheless, from an interagency perspective, 

little of real substance has changed since the attacks of 

9/11, at least from the standpoint of jurisdictional reorganization, any serious rebalancing of resources, or 

the addition of agency and departmental capabilities. 

The findings of the 9/11 Commission and the hard 

lessons of almost a decade of warfare in Afghanistan 

and Iraq suggest that incremental changes will not be 

enough, given the structural nature of these strategic 

and interagency challenges. Instead, improvements 

in coordinating structures, updated jurisdictional arrangements, and a review of agency and departmental 

capabilities must come at all levels if the interagency 

process is to become more effective. A failure to implement meaningful changes that redirect resources, 

provide for the operational control of other-agency 

resources, and establish binding mechanisms of accountability will only ensure that the existing presidential directives and other interagency guidelines 

will continue to have little real impact on how business is actually done. If we fail to act decisively, the 

outcomes will continue to reflect this disunity of effort.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 6

1. Rajiv Chandrasekaran, “Nobody Wants to Tell Us Anything,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, March 23-29, 

2009, p. 17.
252

2. Portions of this chapter originally appeared in the author’s 

“Filling Irregular Warfare’s Interagency Gaps,” Parameters, Vol. 

39, No. 3, Autumn 2009, pp. 65-80. The author is grateful to Parameters for the permission to reprint portions of his arguments here.

3. U.S. Joint Forces Command, Commander’s Handbook for the 

Joint Interagency Coordination Group, Norfolk, VA: Joint Warfighting Center, March 1, 2007, p. II-3. 

4. Thomas S. Szayna, Derek Eaton, and Amy Richardson, Preparing the Army for Stability Operations, Santa Monica, CA: Rand 

Corporation, 2007, p. 9.

5. John F. Troxell, “Presidential Decision Directive-56: A Glass 

Half Full,” Chap. 2 in Joseph R. Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, eds., 

The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, 

Transition, and Reconstruction Roles, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2007, pp. 25-26, 

available from www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

6. Ibid.

7. Szayna, Eaton, and Richardson, p. 9.

8. National Security Presidential Directive-1: Organization of 

the National Security Council System, Washington, DC: The White 

House, February 13, 2001, pp. 1-2.

9. Szayna, Eaton, and Richardson, p. 9.

10. Department of Defense (DoD) Directive 3000.05: Military Support for Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction (SSTR) Operations, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, November 28, 

2005, p. 2.

11. Zeb B. Bradford, Jr., and Frederic J. Brown, America’s 

Army: A Model for Interagency Effectiveness, Westport, CT: Praeger, 

2008, p. 29.

12. DoD Directive 3000.05, 2005, pp. 2-3.
253

13. Department of Defense (DoD) Instruction 3000.05: Stability 

Operations, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, September 

2009.

14. DoD Directive 3000.5, 2005, p. 9.

15. Szayna, Eaton, and Richardson, p. xiv.

16. National Security Presidential Directive (NSPD)-44: Management of Interagency Efforts Concerning Reconstruction and Stabilization, Washington, DC: The White House, December 7, 2005, pp. 

1-2.

17. Ibid., p. 2.

18. Ibid., pp. 3-4.

19. Ibid., pp. 4-5.

20. Ibid.

21. Troxell, pp. 27-28.

22. Szayna, Eaton, and Richardson, p. 9.

23. Ibid., p. xv.

24. U.S. Government Counterinsurgency Guide, Washington, 

DC: U.S. Government Interagency Counterinsurgency Initiative, 

January 2009, acknowledgements. 

25. Ibid., p. 15.

26. Ibid., p. 30.

27. Ibid., p. 31.

28. Ibid., pp. 45-47.

29. Ibid., p. 51.

30. Ibid.
254

31. Karen DeYoung, “A More Nimble Approach,” The Washington Post National Weekly Edition, February 16-22, 2009, p. 33.

32. Ibid.

33. Peter Feaver, “Has Change Come to the National Security Council?” Foreign Policy online, May 27, 2009, available from 

shadow.foreignpolicy.com. 

34. Szayna, Eaton, and Richardson, p. xiv.

35. Ibid., p. xvii.

36. John W. Kingdon, Agendas, Alternatives, and Public Policies, 

2nd Ed., New York: Pearson, 1997, pp. 71-89.

37. James F. Dobbins, After the Taliban: Nation-Building in Afghanistan, Washington, DC: Potomac, 2008, p. 118.

38. Ibid.

39. Ibid., p. 140.

40. Amos A. Jordan et al., American National Security, 5th Ed., 

Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999, pp. 100-

101.

41. Ibid., pp. 218-219. 

42. Ibid., p. 219.

43. Richard B. Doyle, “The U.S. National Security Strategy: 

Policy, Politics, and Problems,” Public Administration Review, 

July/August 2007, p. 625.

44. Ibid., p. 626.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid.
255

48. Ibid.

49. Ibid.

50. Scott R. Feil, “The Failure of Incrementalism: Interagency 

Coordination Challenges and Responses,” Chap. 9 in Cerami and 

Boggs, pp. 296-299.

51. Ibid.

52. National Security Presidential Directive-1, 2001.

53. Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, “Preventing and Responding to Conflict: A New Approach,” 

April 2009 presentation, p. 3, available from www.CivilianResponseCorps.gov. 

54. Ibid., p. 5.

55. Ibid.

56. Ibid.

57. Ibid., p. 10.

58. Ibid., p. 14.

59. Ibid., p. 6.

60. Doing Business in Afghanistan: A Country Commercial Guide 

for U.S. Companies, Washington, DC: Department of State, 2008.

61. Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication (JP) 1-0: 

Doctrine for the Armed Forces of the United States, Washington, DC: 

May 14, 2007, Chap. 1, p. I-1.

62. Ibid., Chap. 2, p. II-2.

63. Joint Publication (JP) 3-0: Joint Operations, Washington, DC: 

Department of Defense, September 17, 2006, with Change 1 as of 

February 13, 2008, pp. II-1 to II-3.
256

64. Field Manual (FM) 3-0: Operations, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, February 2008, pp. 2-3 to2-5.

65. Ibid., p. 2-4.

66. Ibid., pp. 3-15 to 3-16.

67. Joint Publication (JP) 5-0: Joint Operation Planning, Washington, DC: Department of Defense; December 26, 2006, pp. II-6 

to II-9.

68. Ibid., p. II-9.

69. Ibid., pp. II-7 to II-8.

70. Field Manual (FM) 3-24: Counterinsurgency Field Manual, 

Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press edition, 2007, Chap. 2. 

71. Carlos Hernandorena, “U.S. Provincial Reconstruction 

Teams in Afghanistan, 2003-2006: Obstacles to Interagency Cooperation,” Chap. 5 in Cerami and Boggs, eds., p.130.

72. Ibid., pp. 128-129.

73. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos, New York: Penguin, 

2008, p. 198.

74. Hernandorena, p. 128.

75. Rashid, pp. 200-201.

76. Hernandorena, p. 134.

77. Personal interview with the author in Afghanistan in December 2007.

78. Hernandorena, p. 132.

79. Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa 

Monica, CA: Rand Corporation’s National Defense Research Institute Press, 2008, p. 107.
257

80. Ibid.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid.

83. Hernandorena, p. 136.

84. Ibid.

85. Ibid.

86. Ibid., p. 138.

87. Provincial Reconstruction Teams in Afghanistan: An Interagency Assessment, Washington, DC: U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID), June 2006, pp. 5-6.

88. Ibid., p. 6.

89. Hernandorena, p. 143.

90. Progress toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 

2009 Report to Congress in accordance with the 2008 National Defense 

Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, June 

2009, p. 17.

91. Ibid.

92. Ibid.

93. Ibid., p. 18.

94. Report to Congressional Committees: Afghanistan Security, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, June 

2008, p. 2. 

95. Ibid. 

96. Sarah Chayes, The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan 

After the Taliban, New York: Penguin, 2006, p. 277.
258

97. Ibid., p. 52.

98. Rashid, p. 185.

99. Ibid., pp. 185-186.

100. Chandrasekaran, p. 6.

101. Rashid, p. 323.

102. Ibid.

103. Chandrasekaran, p. 6.

104. Ibid., p. 7.

105. Stanley A. McChrystal, COMISAF’S Initial Assessment, 

Kabul, Afghanistan: International Security Force Headquarters, 

August 30, 2009, pp. 2-14.

106. Rob Norland, “With Raw Recruits, Afghan Police Buildup Falters,” The New York Times online edition, February 2, 2010, 

available from www.nytimes.com.

107. Bradford and Brown, p. x.
259

CHAPTER 7

THE UNSURPRISING AND UNEVEN RESULTS

The guerilla can win simply by not losing, whereas the 

counterinsurgent power can lose by not winning.

Jeffrey Record1

In light of the various factors that have combined 

to undermine the Coalition’s prospects for success in 

Afghanistan, it is not at all surprising that progress 

has been messy and slow. Key causes at the core of 

these difficulties include the particularly challenging 

case that Afghanistan represents as a candidate for 

viable nationhood, along with the enormously broad 

and complex scope of nation-building and irregular 

warfare missions in the best of circumstances. Added 

to this mix is the disjointedness of U.S. strategy, as 

well as a mismatch between the demands of the mission and existing governmental capabilities and resources. This substantial mismatch between intended 

ways and available means is aggravated further by 

inefficient and ineffective mechanisms for integrating 

resources and agency efforts. Even worse, these strategic and operational shortcomings have contributed 

directly to distress for many average Afghan citizens. 

The United States, our allies, and the host nation have 

all absorbed major costs in the form of blood and treasure. 

Perhaps inevitably, the results on the ground have 

reflected these inherent problems. Writing in 2008 before the modified strategy and surge were implemented, and identifying a progressive loss of momentum in 

Afghanistan since 2006, analysts from the Institute for 
260

National Strategic Studies attributed the trend at the 

time to several primary obstacles, among them, “the 

inherent weakness of state institutions, the dearth of 

human capital, inadequate international resources, 

and a lack of visible progress at the local level to give 

Afghans hope.”2

 These analysts went on to cite poor 

development practices, the drug trade, violence, and 

corruption as factors that had contributed to a continuing short Afghan life expectancy of 43.8 years and 

a meager 28.1 percent literacy rate, as well as other 

indicators of a dismal quality of life for the average 

Afghan.3

 Writing about the same time, former Afghan 

Interior Minister Ali Jalali noted, “Afghanistan faces 

the distinct possibility of sliding back into instability 

and chaos [given a] record rise in drug production, 

deterioration of the rule of law, and [a] weakening 

national government in the regions outside the major 

cities.”4

In his own insightful pre-surge report of the conditions on the ground in 2008, General Barry McCaffrey 

lauded the quality of the military’s kinetic operational 

efforts, but he then went on to describe an Afghanistan that was in misery. General McCaffrey cited a 

constant state of warfare, short life expectancy, high 

infant and pregnancy death rates, and wholesale dysfunction and governmental corruption within Afghan 

society as some of the major causes of Afghan suffering.5

 After revisiting the country in November 2009, 

General McCaffrey noted that illiteracy continued at 

the same rate, and he also found that 87 percent of 

Afghan women complained of violence against them, 

half of it sexual in nature.6 Additionally, he discovered that drug abuse, tuberculosis, and other diseases 

and maladies were still widespread.7 More recent 

measures in 2010 confirmed that the Afghan average 
261

life expectancy is slightly improved but still short at 

44.4 years, while the literacy rate has remained at 28.1 

percent.8 Without question, progress toward improving the quality of life of the average Afghan has been 

slow, in spite of massive aid and the focused efforts of 

the international community.

On a brighter note, General McCaffrey observed 

that about eight million Afghans now have phones, 

and that there are 650 active print publications, 15 

television networks, and 55 private radio stations.9

 He 

also identified the Afghan National Army (ANA) as a 

success story, with 82 of its 132 authorized battalions 

fielded by November 2009.10 General McCaffrey was 

also pleased to find that the approval rate for U.S. and 

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in 

the country was over 60 percent.11 Measured more recently, however, approval rates for NATO forces have 

fallen off significantly since his last visit, as 68 percent 

of Afghans surveyed answered “no” in a 2010 poll 

when asked whether NATO forces “protect the local 

population.”12 Other recent adverse indicators include 

70 percent of the respondents stating that NATO and 

Afghan military operations are “bad” (rather than 

“good”) for their local areas, and 75 percent responding that foreigners “disrespect” their “religion and 

tradition.”13

On a more positive and recent note, however, the 

effects of the 2010 surge of U.S. and coalition forces, 

augmented with additional civilian agency personnel and heightened resources, have in fact resulted in 

significant progress on the security front. This progress is measured by the number of key districts with 

a substantial security presence and by the increased 

pressure on the Taliban.14 Disapproval of the Taliban among the Afghan population also increased to 
262

75 percent from 68 percent at the end of the last reporting period. Additionally, the measures of Afghan 

National Security Force (ANSF) generation and effectiveness also increased significantly over the period.15

At the same time, progress in improving governance 

has continued to lag the security gains, and casualties 

among the civilian population remained at significant 

though decreased levels, with the Taliban and other 

anti-government elements responsible for the great 

majority of those casualties.16 When considered as a 

whole, the results in Afghanistan have been uneven—

and unsurprising.

THE ANSF AND POPULATION SECURITY: 

PRE-SURGE AND POST-SURGE 

While General McCaffrey was correct in identifying the rapid development of the ANA and its effective performance as the coalition’s major success story 

in 2008, other measures of Afghanistan’s security posture provided cause for concern. These trends were 

especially troubling, given that the Coalition’s security-related efforts—including developing the ANSF 

and their administrative institutions and protecting 

the Afghan people—had been at the forefront of the 

military’s endeavors in Afghanistan since the beginning of the intervention. Without question, population security and ANSF development have received 

the lion’s share of the coalition’s attention, resources, 

and effort in the period since the transition to a more 

robust counterinsurgency and the introduction of the 

surge forces.

 Analyzing these security trends in detail, a 2008 

Rand study concluded that the quality of the Afghan 

security forces remained poor, with the police in par-
263

ticular being characterized as “corrupt and often unable to perform basic patrolling (much less) conduct 

counterinsurgency operations, protect reconstruction projects, prevent border incursions, and conduct counternarcotics operations.”17 This Rand study 

found “deep-seated corruption” in the Ministry of the 

Interior, the agency with responsibility for administering the police forces.18 In general, the Rand study 

corroborated General McCaffrey’s perspectives on the 

ANA, concluding that it had developed into a credible 

force that featured “tenacious fighters” who were “effective in gathering intelligence,” largely as a result of 

the “critical factor” of receiving effective training from 

U.S. and Coalition forces.19 Of course, these respective ANSF outcomes are not all that surprising, given 

that the U.S. military certainly has more experience in 

building an army than it does a police force. In fairness, it should also be noted that the United States did 

not originally have the police development mission, 

which initially belonged to the German government. 

At about the same time the Rand study was underway, the U.S. Government Accountability Office 

(GAO) conducted its own study of the Afghan army 

and police development mission. GAO found that in 

spite of the more than $10 billion already spent on the 

Afghan security forces by 2008, there still was no coordinated, detailed, or comprehensive Department of 

State (State) and Department of Defense (DoD) plan 

for ANSF development. Like the Rand study, the GAO 

assessment found major problems within the ANSF in 

terms of force capabilities, administrative capacity, 

reenlistment and retention rates, equipment fielding, 

and other measures.20 The GAO study also questioned 

why the $6 billion investment in the Afghan National 

Police (ANP) to that point had resulted in no fully 
264

trained police districts out of the 365 across the country.21 Only 12 of the 433 police units were judged to be 

capable of conducting operations, even with significant Coalition support. GAO also found other persistent and major shortfalls in the supporting elements 

of the judicial sector, as well as problems with police 

pay systems, widespread corruption, and injuries and 

deaths due to insurgent attacks.22 The police mission 

also continued to struggle with a persistent shortage 

of mentors for the district police and the offices of the 

Ministry of the Interior. Even worse, these same problems had been previously identified in a similar GAO 

study of 2005.23

Projecting forward, the GAO study pointed to the 

lack of a sustainable model for the police; as such, the 

agency suggested that the U.S. commitment might 

have to remain in place indefinitely, given the Afghans’ inability to sustain themselves. More recently, 

in 2010, U.S. officials have in fact acknowledged that 

the United States expects to subsidize the training and 

support of the ANSF at the rate of about $6 billion per 

year, even after the United States begins withdrawing 

troops from the country in 2011.24 In spite of the massive U.S. investment so far, the GAO also found that 

the police continued to lack basic equipment, including shortages in everything from vehicles to radios to 

body armor.25 GAO observers found more to like in 

the development of the ANA, but the agency questioned why over the 6 years from 2002 to 2008, only 

two of 105 Afghan army units had been assessed as 

fully capable.26 In the GAO’s view, this slow production rate called into question the viability of the ambitious plans to increase the end-strength of the ANSF 

significantly and rapidly in the coming years. Finally, 

in another GAO study about 6 months later, GAO re-
265

ported that the agency had major concerns about the 

lack of tracking and accountability mechanisms for 

the weapons and other sensitive items, such as night 

vision goggles, that had been provided to the ANSF.27

In June 2009, the Department of Defense (DoD) 

submitted its own mandatory report to Congress 

on the state of the mission in Afghanistan. The DoD 

thumbnail sketch of the situation resembled both the 

McCaffrey and GAO reports in many respects, because the document painted a dreary picture in terms 

of population security and the development of the 

ANSF. At the same time, the document offered more 

positive measures related to the provision of basic 

services to the Afghan people. In the DoD summary, 

the report noted that “the security situation continued to deteriorate in much of Afghanistan,” while 

“insurgent-initiated attacks were 60% higher than the 

preceding year.”28 Reflecting in part on the Coalition’s 

efforts to take the fight to the enemy in areas they had 

not previously been able to reach, the report noted 

that U.S. casualties had increased by 24 percent from 

the previous year. Overall military deaths, including 

those within the ANSF and among the allies, had increased by 48 percent.29 On a brighter note, DoD reported in 2009 that civilian casualties had decreased 

by 9 percent from the previous year. Furthermore, the 

civilian population’s willingness to cooperate with 

the Coalition in ways, such as turning in improvised 

explosive devices (IEDs), had actually increased.30 As 

another measure of population security, a companion report from the Congressional Research Service 

published a few months after the 2009 DoD report observed that despite success in enrolling Afghan children in schools, the educational initiative had suffered 

numerous setbacks due to Taliban attacks.31
266

Following up on its assessments from earlier in 

the year, GAO conducted another study in September 

2009, this time focusing upon the interagency process. 

The study reported: 

Most U.S. initiatives we reviewed, such as the efforts 

to build capable Afghan security forces, needed improved planning, including the development of coordinated interagency plans that include measurable 

goals, specific time frames, and cost estimates. . . . The 

Departments of Defense and State lacked a coordinated, detailed interagency plan for training and equipping the Afghan National Security Forces.32

While acknowledging the incredibly difficult 

working conditions confronting U.S. personnel, the 

GAO report also identified a number of other recurring problems. These persistent problems included 

the continuing high costs of the mission, the limited 

success in reforming the Afghan army and police, a 

lack of accountability over “billions in U.S. assistance 

to Afghanistan and Pakistan,” and shortfalls in managing and overseeing contractors, road construction, 

other development activities, and counternarcotics.33

Commenting on the state of population security 

and the irregular warfare operations, General McCaffrey’s follow-on report of November 2009 described a 

resurgent Taliban with a “serious presence in 160 of 

364 districts,” up from 30 such districts in 2003.34 He 

also reported that in July 2009 alone, the Taliban had 

employed 828 IED attacks against Coalition forces. The 

Taliban had also mounted two large-scale, battalionsized, complex, and coordinated attacks on Coalition 

forces earlier in the year.35 As an additional measure 

of the deteriorating security posture, the casualties 

among the ANP had also increased dramatically.36
267

For its own part, the DoD’s 2010 report to Congress 

provides additional evidence of the major security 

challenges still confronting the Coalition. The annual 

DoD report notes that, “The insurgents perceive 2009 

as their most successful year.”37 The report further acknowledges that “the insurgents’ strategy has proven 

effective in slowing the spread of governance and development.”38 More positively, the DoD report of 2010 

asserts that “the insurgency has been under unprecedented pressure,” and that “52% of Afghans believe 

insurgents are the greatest source of insecurity, while 

only 1% believes the National Army/Police are primarily to blame.”39 At the same time, these positive 

developments are offset by the fact that the insurgents 

are now active in more areas than they had been in the 

previous year, with their levels of activity increasing 

in 2009 and then again in 2010. The level of IED attacks in 2010 in Afghanistan increased by 236 percent 

over the prior year.40

In its internal assessments of the development of 

the Afghan forces, the 2009 DoD report asserted that 

ANSF capability had continued to improve, but the 

report also admitted that the effort was still slowed 

by shortages of police and army trainers. Specifically, 

in 2009 NATO only had 1,665 of the 3,313 personnel 

needed for the Afghan Army’s Embedded Training 

Teams (ETTs) and comparable shortfalls for the ANP 

Police Mentor Teams (PMTs).41 The DoD’s 2010 report 

indicates that these significant shortages of trainers 

continue, even as the Afghan government’s request 

to expand the ANSF end-strength goals to 171,600 in 

the Afghan Army and 134,000 in the police were approved.42 The 2009 report also notes that ANA development continues to proceed at an accelerated pace, 

but expresses concerns about the lagging develop-
268

ment of Afghan ministerial capacity and the quality of 

the Afghan police personnel once they graduate from 

training.43 Other major concerns in 2010 with ANSF 

development include high attrition rates within the 

highly trained Afghan National Civil Order Police 

(ANCOP), lagging leader development among Army 

officers, shortages of officer and noncommissioned officers, and continuing poor literacy rates.44

Reflecting the impact of the surge of trainers and 

other enablers in 2010, the April 2011 DoD report 

paints a more positive picture in terms of the quantity and quality of ANSF production. The report notes 

that in the period since the 2009 report, 92,000 additional Afghan army and police personnel had been 

brought onto the rolls and trained, a rate that actually exceeded the targeted rates of development.45 The 

report also cites gains in ANSF literacy training, the 

development of enabling and sustaining forces, and 

the initiation of efforts to develop an internal Afghan 

training capability, all aimed at achieving the goal of 

moving “Afghanistan closer to a professional, sustainable ANSF that is subject to civilian control and 

is capable of independently providing security to the 

Afghan people.”46 Toward this effort, the report also 

lists 292 Coalition trainers as working in the Ministry of the Interior alone to facilitate the Afghan police 

development and the creation of the institutional capabilities needed to administer the police programs, 

as a measure of the magnitude of resources required 

to achieve these challenging goals. Despite the surge, 

the police training effort lacks 740 of the 2,778 trainers 

required.47

Moreover, the lack of police trainers and the question of the sustainability of the ANSF are not the only 

red flags to emerge from the latest assessments. In 
269

a report to Congress in January 2011, GAO analysts 

cite a similar shortfall of trainers for the Afghan army 

development effort, in addition to noting that the 

long-term costs of ANSF development and sustainment have not been seriously considered in the push 

to rapidly expand the size of those forces in advance 

of the planned 2014 transfer of authority.48 Additionally, while recent initiatives to tighten contracting 

procedures and oversight have been implemented to 

positive effect, the congressionally appointed Commission on Wartime Contracting estimated in its final 

report of August 2011, that approximately $60 billion 

in U.S. war funds had been wasted across civilian and 

military programs in Afghanistan, fueling fraud and 

corruption while undermining the efforts on behalf of 

the Afghans.49

Finally, in terms of population security, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism, the Coalition has 

realized significant recent successes, including the 

high-profile terminations of al Qaeda leaders Osama 

Bin Laden and Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, both in Pakistan. Describing security progress as significant, yet 

“fragile and reversible,” the 2011 DoD report also cites 

increased insurgent use of asymmetric tactics in light 

of significant losses due to direct engagement with the 

increased ISAF forces.50 As a result of the increased 

ISAF pressure and significant Taliban losses, the total 

number of suicide attacks actually fell from 51 to 45 

over the report period, although the enemy’s heightened use of asymmetric tactics, such as IEDs, infiltration of the ANSF, assassinations, and other techniques 

have also resulted in higher civilian casualty levels.51

The coalition also reported steady progress with improving ANSF reach and the security posture of identified “Key Terrain Districts” (KTDs) during the report 

period.52
270

THE STATE OF AFGHAN GOVERNANCE AND 

CORRUPTION

In his 2007 analysis of the declining conditions in 

Afghanistan and his prescriptions for improvement, 

former Afghan Interior Minister Ali Jalali asserted 

that the “political consensus of 2001 has been lost to 

disruptive factionalism.”53 As a further indicator of the 

poor state of Afghan governance, he also highlighted 

the fact that several years later, the Coalition and Afghan government had failed to create constitutionally 

required provincial and local governing institutions, 

pointing out that the “subnational institutions mandated by the national constitution are only partially established.”54 Offering a grim assessment of the state of 

Afghan political affairs, Jalali asserted, “The structural 

legitimacy of the current Afghan government suffers 

from a lack of capacity, particularly at the subnational 

level, where the vacuum is filled by insurgents, militia 

commanders, combined with local criminal gangs.”55

He further noted, “The introduction of district, village, 

and municipal councils has been delayed indefinitely. 

. . . Provincial councils are in place but are fraught with 

confusion regarding their roles and responsibility.”56

In support of Jalali’s bleak analysis, Afghan government capacity remained so poor in 2005 that the 

government could only spend 44 percent of the aid 

it received for development, lacking the basic capacity to award and monitor contracts.57 Adding further 

evidence of the widespread Afghan governmental 

dysfunction, the June 2009 DoD report confirmed this 

gloomy assessment, noting that, “The [Afghan government] is, and will for the foreseeable future continue to be hampered by lack of capacity, resources, 
271

and interagency planning and coordination.” The 

report further asserted that government corruption 

remained a major problem that “saps the credibility 

of the institutions of governance and undermines Afghan and international efforts to build these institutions.”58 Even in the few cases in which ministerial 

leadership had been strengthened, the national-level 

governing institutions remained remarkably thin, as 

evidenced by the DoD report, which cited significant 

weakness in the second- and third-tier leadership.59 In 

an incident that showed just how far the Afghans have 

to go before they can approach any Western standards 

of democratic governance, in March 2009, after international outcry and some domestic protest, President 

Karzai finally suspended the enforcement of the Shi’a 

Personal Status Law, a law that would have required 

Shi’a women “to have their husband’s permission to 

leave the house and would have legalized marital 

rape.”60

In August 2009, the presidential elections were 

disturbing on several levels, with allegations of widespread fraud among all of the candidates, and NATO 

appearing feeble, given its inability to administer the 

various polling sites. The United Nations (UN) Elections Complaints Commission (ECC) determined by 

October that about one million Karzai votes, as well 

as another 200,000 Abdullah votes, were fraudulent 

and therefore deducted from the candidates’ totals.61

Initially resistant to the notion that any fraud had 

occurred at all, President Karzai eventually relented 

once the ECC had rendered its report, and he acknowledged the need for a run-off election. However, 

on November 1, the challenger, Abdullah, withdrew 

from the projected run-off, stating that there was no 

way he could possibly get a fair election. 
272

In another troubling trend, the Afghan government had grown in size, but it also had narrowed ethnically, becoming progressively dominated by ethnic 

Pashtuns.62 While the parliament has done better in 

terms of its ethnic diversity, it is still sometimes criticized for its large contingent of former mujahedeen. 

As a broader measure of Afghan governmental reach, 

U.S. analysts estimate that the Karzai government 

controlled about 30 percent of the country in 2009, 

while the Taliban controlled about 4 percent and had 

a significant influence in another 30 percent.63 Other 

observers have gone so far as to assert that the Afghan 

national governing institutions are far less effective 

than the ad hoc shadow institutions that the Taliban 

have constructed, and that the current legitimate government of Afghanistan even compares poorly with 

the leftist and monarchical governments of Afghanistan’s past.64

The pattern of fraudulent elections has continued, 

as demonstrated by the 2010 elections, which resulted 

in thousands of allegations of fraud and the widespread practice of ballot-box stuffing. Also in 2010, a 

top Afghan prosecutor was forced into retirement by 

the Karzai administration after repeatedly complaining that top Afghan officials were thwarting corruption investigations against themselves. The two government officials in question, Interior Minister Hanif 

Atmar and intelligence director Amrullah Saleh, both 

had strong ties to the American and British governments.65 After another senior Afghan official was 

forced out by Karzai under similar circumstances, analysts began to question Karzai’s mental fitness for office, his motives, and his potentially shifting interests. 

Not surprisingly, the Afghan president also voiced 

his staunch opposition to the U.S. plan to begin with-
273

drawing forces from Afghanistan in 2011, with the 

clear implication being that the Afghan government 

was nowhere close to being able to govern for itself 

without the continuation of major U.S. and NATO assistance.

In the first major assessment in the post-surge period, the April 2011 DoD report finds that the perception of the Afghan government has clearly improved 

in some respects. Afghans reported more optimism 

about their government’s prospects, along with increases in the belief that their government had more 

influence than the Taliban, and increasing levels of 

perceived safety in traveling about the country.66 At the 

same time, actual progress in the provision of services, 

ministerial capacity, and the achievement of benchmarks agreed upon in the Kabul Conference of 2010 

remained slow. Along the same lines, then-Chairman 

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen testified 

before Congress that “improvements in subnational 

and reconstruction have not kept pace with progress 

in improving security,” a result that “has impeded our 

ability to hold, build, and transfer.” Likewise, a special task force convened by General David Petraeus 

in 2010 and 2011 estimated that approximately $360 

million in U.S. tax dollars had made their way to the 

Taliban and various criminal elements as a result of 

corruption in the Afghan government and lax oversight mechanisms in the contracting processes.67

RECONSTRUCTION, ECONOMIC 

DEVELOPMENT, AND THE DRUG TRADE

The news on the economic side of the Afghan 

equation is mixed, whether viewed from the perspective of U.S. agency and departmental performance or 
274

in consideration of actual Afghan economic results. 

Among other factors, the impacts of the deteriorating security situation and the disjointed commitment 

of resources to reconstruction and development are 

clearly evident in the marginal economic progress that 

the mission has made to date. These challenges were 

first identified systematically in a GAO study of July 

2005. This study noted that the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) had intended to build 

or rehabilitate 286 schools by the end of 2004, but had 

only completed eight.68 That same report noted that 

USAID also could not provide complete financial data 

to show where its economic assistance funds had been 

committed, which was also the case in 2002 and 2003; 

the GAO report further stated that the agency “lacked 

a comprehensive strategy to direct its efforts.”69

Drilling down further, GAO found that USAID 

had also failed to “consistently require contractors to 

fulfill contract provisions,” and the agency “did not 

systematically collect information needed to assess 

the progress of its major projects.” This shortfall was 

exacerbated by the fact that “measures provided by 

the embassy to decisionmakers in Washington did 

not comprehensively portray progress in each sector 

or the overall U.S. program.”70 The GAO report then 

identified problems with the coordination and integration of agency, host-nation, and donor efforts, including “confusion” between the ad hoc “Afghanistan 

Reconstruction Group” and the USAID contractors.71

In a carefully documented analysis in 2008, a military 

participant in the Khost PRT questioned whether or 

not these ad hoc interagency groups were really as effective as they were claimed to be, citing some of the 

same challenges as the GAO.72
275

Reporting in June 2009, the DoD identified to Congress some areas of progress in the broader economic 

and developmental efforts, including the completion 

of 78 percent of the ring road and the fact that 82 percent of the population now had access to the Ministry 

of Public Health’s “Basic Package of Health Care Services.”73 The report gave credit to the increased public 

health measures for the fact that 40,000 more infants 

were surviving each year than had been previously.74

Also, despite the fact that heightened Taliban attacks 

continued to limit actual attendance, access to education had increased, with more than seven million children being enrolled in school on the opening day in 

March 2009, another positive indicator of success.75

At the same time, the 2009 DoD report also noted 

that uneven taxing practices and a lack of security 

had diminished the potential benefits of the highway which, while low on the list of USAID priorities, 

was absolutely vital to any sustained and legitimate 

Afghan economy. The production and distribution 

of electricity also remained problematic; in spite of 

some progress, the going was slow. USAID had set a 

goal of reaching 65 percent of the urban population 

with electricity and 25 percent in the rural areas by 

the end of 2010.76 Perhaps the most promising indicator of all, Afghanistan doubled its legitimate agricultural output over the past 5 years, although much of 

this growth depended upon the continued infusion of 

aid.77 So, in 2009, the massive infusion of aid from the 

United States and the international community was 

clearly having an impact on the provision of the most 

basic social services. However, the need remained 

overwhelming, and sustainable economic growth for 

Afghanistan remained elusive.
276

More recently, the 2010 DoD report to Congress illustrates that these economic difficulties remain, with 

progress coming in small increments, when it comes 

at all. Only a handful of Afghanistan’s key districts 

are realizing sustainable or even dependent economic 

growth, since most regions of the country are characterized as having “minimal” or “stalled” growth 

levels—or had their “population at risk” or were “not 

assessed.”78 Although government revenues grew 

significantly as a result of the institution of improved 

tax collection techniques and anti-corruption measures, a concurrent increase in spending has led to a 

huge Afghan budget deficit. Actual Afghan revenues 

generated by legitimate domestic economic activity accounted for only 30 percent of the 2010 Afghan 

government budget, and this model is clearly unsustainable—a lesson the United States must also learn. 

The 2011 DoD report notes that much like the Afghan 

public’s perception of governance, public optimism 

regarding the country’s economic prospects has increased, though the actual pace of reconstruction and 

development remains slow.79

Viewing these challenges more broadly, former Afghan Interior Minister Jalali pointed to the wholesale 

lack of security and rule of law, as well as the prospering drug trade, as being major hurdles to economic 

progress in Afghanistan and to the counterinsurgency.80 For example, in 2004, for the first time ever, 

poppy was farmed in all 34 Afghan provinces and the 

actual illegal drug production rate increased greatly, 

as over 80 percent of the poppy was refined into heroin in the country, a far greater amount than in previous years.81 A 2005 GAO study also noted that the 

deteriorating security in the country not only severely 

limited economic development, but that the increased 
277

opium production also served to undermine the legitimate economic activity.82 In terms of the scope of this 

effect, UN and U.S. estimates placed the drug activity at approximately 50 to 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 

gross domestic product in the years between 2002 

and 2004.83 Partly related to the drug trade, terrorist 

violence in Afghanistan also increased more than 20 

percent between 2006 and the second half of 2007.84

As another negative aspect of the enforcement of the 

rule of law, the nation’s 34 provincial prisons and its 

203 detention centers remain in terrible condition, and 

prisoner abuse among the Afghan guards remains 

widespread.85

Measuring these impacts more recently, DoD’s 

June 2009 report to Congress stated that opium cultivation decreased by 20 percent compared against the 

previous year, a trend largely attributed to changes in 

ISAF rules of engagement that allowed ISAF personnel 

to target drug facilities and traffickers. Overall, total 

poppy eradication was double the rate in 2008, but still 

less than in 2007, largely due to weaker performance 

by Provincial Governor-led Eradication. At the same 

time, a positive trend saw nearly 20,000 farmers agree 

to grow alternative crops to poppy.86 Conversely, the 

2010 DoD report admits that ISAF and the international community also learned that President Karzai was 

right on one point, as “large scale eradication targeted 

toward Afghan poppy farmers was counterproductive 

and drove farmers to the insurgency.”87 Accordingly, 

the National Security Council (NSC) subsequently approved a new U.S. counternarcotics strategy aimed at 

overcoming these unintended consequences that had 

actually reinforced the insurgents’ prospects.
278

OTHER SUMMARY MEASURES OF MISSION 

PROGRESS

As a broader measure of the security climate in 

Afghanistan and the impact of the violence on the Afghan people in recent years, a poll of Afghan citizens 

undertaken by Western media in late 2007 revealed 

that 24 percent of the respondents claimed that civilians in their areas had been killed or seriously injured 

by Western forces in the past year, while 27 percent indicated that civilians in their areas had been killed or 

seriously injured by the Taliban.88 At the end of 2007, 

an NSC assessment noted that it was possible that 

the United States and NATO could lose the war altogether based on the deteriorating security situation 

and the lack of progress.89 A 2008 Rand study identified major continuing failures in the development of 

indigenous security forces, local governance, and the 

denial of insurgent sanctuaries in Pakistan, among 

other critical shortcomings in the Afghan mission.90 At 

about the same time, a World Bank study identified 

the “absence of a clear policy framework regarding a 

desired institutional structure and a strategy to implement it” as the most pressing shortcoming of the effort 

in Afghanistan.91

In its own assessment of mission progress in 2009, 

the DoD report reflected a move on the part of the 

Obama administration to ratchet back the expectations 

for gains in governance and economic development. 

Noting a need for realistic and achievable objectives, 

the report backed away from the goal of a democratic 

Afghanistan, instead defining the objective as, “Promoting a more capable, accountable, and effective 

government in Afghanistan” and “civilian control and 

stable constitutional government in Pakistan.”92 The 
279

document also mentions building a stronger democracy in Pakistan, but offers a more limited call for a 

self-reliant government in Afghanistan, although the 

document does mention a continuing effort to “bolster 

the legitimacy of the Afghan government by helping 

to ensure free and fair elections for Afghan leaders.”93

Coming just 2 months after the release of the DoD report, the actual elections would prove to be anything 

but free and fair. 

Regardless, these diminished expectations still 

come with a major price tag. In constant 2009 dollars, 

Afghanistan and Iraq were costing about $377 million 

per day in that year, compared with $622 million per 

day for World War II, and the cost for Afghanistan 

alone was more than $9 billion per month in Fiscal 

Year 2010 (FY10).94 The baseline budgetary request 

for operations in Afghanistan FY10 was $65 billion, 

even before the costs of the Afghan surge were added 

into the actual total.95 Through the end of fiscal year 

2009, operations in Afghanistan and Iraq had already 

combined to cost the United States more than $940 billion since 2001, with Afghanistan amounting to $223 

billion of that total.96 As noted previously, the administration’s combined Fiscal Year 2011 (FY11) budget 

request for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq is $159 

billion, and anticipated costs for Afghanistan in FY10 

and FY11 are expected to exceed $100 billion in each 

year. Clearly, nation-building and irregular warfare 

are not only uncertain undertakings, but they are also 

extremely expensive ones. The results in Afghanistan 

also confirm the less-than-optimal nature of the interagency effort, coming after almost 10 years of operations, many billions of dollars of U.S. aid, and the major concurrent effort by the international community 

and NATO. 
280

Perhaps most disturbingly, it is not clear at all that 

the Afghans really appreciate the magnitude of this 

effort, or even wish it to continue. In opinion polling 

conducted in September 2010, 55 percent of the Afghans surveyed said they were not willing to “work 

with a Westerner in the same place.”97 A clear majority 

of 74 percent think it is “wrong” to work with foreign 

forces.98 If asked to choose between two options, 72 

percent would choose an elected government—but 

24 percent of the others would reinstate the Taliban 

government.99 Given more of a choice, a plurality of 

the respondents (45 percent) continue to prefer an 

Islamic state, and there are more Afghans who prefer a “strong leader” who “rules for life” (30 percent) 

than want democracy (23 percent).100 A large majority of 74 percent favor negotiating with the Taliban, 

though 75 percent of those favoring that option would 

require the Taliban to stop fighting first.101 As far as 

how the counterinsurgency was perceived in 2010, 55 

percent of those surveyed believed that NATO and 

the Afghan government held the upper hand, while 

39 percent saw the Taliban succeeding, and another 6 

percent could not or would not answer.102 While there 

were a number of recent positive trends represented 

in the Afghans’ views of their government, 83 percent 

of the respondents asserted that government corruption affects their daily lives.103 There is clearly a long 

way to go.

Finally, and as perhaps the measure of the opinions that will ultimately have the greatest impact on 

the U.S. mission in Afghanistan, support among the 

American people for continuing the war in Afghanistan lags considerably. In 2009, General McCaffrey cited polling that indicated that 66 percent of the respondents felt that the war was not worth fighting.104 In 
281

2010, 60 percent of the Americans surveyed described 

Afghanistan as a “lost cause.”105 More recently, 58 percent of Americans responded in one poll that “the U.S. 

should not be involved in Afghanistan now,” while 

in another, a full 75 percent supported the President’s 

decision to remove the surge forces from Afghanistan, 

while still others supported further withdrawals.106

The Taliban clearly understand that insurgents win 

by not losing, while counterinsurgents lose by not 

winning. We cannot afford to remain disjointed in our 

strategy or disunified in our methods.

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 7

1. Jeffrey Record, “Why the Strong Lose,” Parameters, Winter 

2005-2006, p. 19.

2. Stephen J. Flanagan and James A. Schear, eds., Strategic 

Challenges: America’s Global Security Agenda, Washington, DC: Institute of National Security Studies (INSS)/National Defense University Press, 2008, pp. 134-135.

3. Ibid., p. 136. 

4. Ali A. Jalali, “Afghanistan: Regaining Momentum,” Parameters, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 2007-08, p. 5.

5. General Barry R. McCaffrey, “After Action Report: Visit 

NATO SHAPE HQ and Afghanistan, 21-26 July 2008,” unpublished memorandum, New York: Department of Social Sciences, 

U.S. Military Academy, July 30, 2008, p. 3.

6. Ibid., p. 7.

7. Ibid.

8. CIA World Fact Book-Afghanistan, available from https://

www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/af.html.
282

9. Ibid., p. 9.

10. Ibid., p. 6.

11. Ibid.

12. Anthony H. Cordesman, “The Afghan War - Part Three: 

Implementing the New Strategy,” Washington, DC: Center for 

Strategic and International Studies, Burke Chair in Strategy Publication, September 8, 2010, p. 16, available from csis.org/files/publication/100909_AfghanWarStatus-III_Strategy.pdf.

13. Ibid.

14. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National 

Security Forces, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 

2011, p. 1.

15. Ibid., pp. 1-3.

16. Ibid., pp. 4-5.

17. Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa 

Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, National Defense Research Institute Press, 2008, p. 69.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid., pp. 74-75.

20. Report to Congressional Committees: Afghanistan Security, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, June 

2008, pp. 2-15.

21. Ibid., p. 2.

22. Congressional testimony of Charles Michael Johnson, 

GAO, on “Afghanistan Security: U.S. Efforts to Develop Capable 

Afghan Police Forces Face Challenges and Need a Coordinated, 

Detailed Plan to Help Ensure Accountability,” June 18, 2008, GAO 

Report GAO-08-883T, Washington, DC: GAO, 2008, Summary.
283

23. Ibid.

24. Desmond Butler, “U.S. to Subsidize Afghan Training for 

Years,” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, September 7, 2010, p. A-3.

25. Ibid., p. 2.

26. Report to Congressional Committees: Afghanistan Security, 

GAO, p. 2.

27. Afghanistan Security: Lack of Systematic Tracking Raises Significant Accountability Concerns about Weapons Provided to Afghan 

National Security Forces, GAO-09-267, Washington, DC: GAO, 

January 2009, pp. 3-5.

28. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 2009 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, June 2009, Executive Summary.

29. Ibid.

30. Ibid.

31. Kenneth Katzman, Afghanistan: Post-Taliban Governance, 

Security, and U.S. Policy, Congressional Research Service (CRS) 

Report RL30588, Washington, DC: CRS, November 10, 2009, p. 59.

32. Congressional testimony of Jacquelyn Williams-Bridgers, 

GAO, on “Afghanistan and Pakistan: Oversight of U.S. Interagency Efforts,” September 9, 2009, GAO Report GAO-09-1015T, Washington, DC: GAO, 2009, p. 2.

33. Ibid.

34. General Barry R. McCaffrey, “After Action Report: Visit 

to Kuwait and Afghanistan, 10-18 November 2009,” unpublished 

memorandum, West Point, NY: Department of Social Sciences, 

U.S. Military Academy, December 5, 2009, pp. 5-6.

35. Ibid.
284

36. Ibid., p. 6.

37. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: April 2010 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, April 2010, p. 23. 

38. Ibid., p. 24.

39. Ibid., pp. 23-24.

40. Ibid., p. 23.

41. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 2009 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, June 2009, Executive Summary. 

42. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: April 2010 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, April 2010, p. 87. 

43. Ibid., pp. 87-89.

44. Cordesman, p. 16.

45. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National 

Security Forces, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 

2011, p. 14. 

46. Ibid.

47. Ibid., pp. 19-20.

48. Afghanistan Security: Afghan Army Growing, but Additional Trainers Needed; Long-Term Costs Not Determined, GAO-11-66, 

Washington, DC: GAO, January 2011, pp. 1-3.

49. “AP Exclusive: Up to $60B in War Funds Said to Be Wasted,” The Observer-Reporter, August 31, 2011, p. B5.
285

50. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National 

Security Forces, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 

2011, pp. 53-55. 

51. Ibid., p. 54.

52. Ibid., pp. 56-57.

53. Ali A. Jalali, “Afghanistan: Regaining Momentum,” Parameters, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 2007-08, p. 5.

54. Ibid., p. 9.

55. Ibid., p. 8.

56. Ibid., p. 9.

57. Ahmed Rashid, Descent into Chaos, New York: Penguin, 

2008, p. 194.

58. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 2009 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, June 2009, Executive Summary. 

59. Ibid.

60. Ibid.

61. Katzman, pp. 11-12.

62. Ibid., p. 13.

63. Ibid., p. 14.

64. Antonio Giustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop: The NeoTaliban Insurgency in Afghanistan, London, UK: Hurst, 2007, p. 18.

65. Alissa J. Rubin, “Karzai’s Increasing Isolation Worries 

Both Afghans and the West,” The New York Times, June 8, 2010, 

p. A12.
286

66. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National 

Security Forces, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 

2011, p. 71. 

67. Richard Lardner and Deb Reichmann, “Afghan Corruption Costing U.S.,” The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, August 17, 2011, 

p. A4.

68. Afghanistan Reconstruction: Despite Some Progress, Deteriorating Security and Other Obstacles Continue to Threaten Achievement of U.S. Goals, GAO-05-742, Washington, DC: GAO, July 2005, 

Summary.

69. Ibid.

70. Ibid.

71. Ibid., p. 4.

72. Robert J. Bebber, “The Role of Provincial Reconstruction 

Teams in Counterinsurgency Operations,” Small Wars Journal, 

November 10, 2008, available from smallwarsjournal.com.

73. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 2009 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, June 2009, Executive Summary. 

74. Ibid.

75. Ibid.

76. Katzman, p. 60.

77. Ibid.

78. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: April 2010 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, April 2010, p. 60. 
287

79. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan and United States Plan for Sustaining the Afghanistan National 

Security Forces, Washington, DC: Department of Defense, April 

2011, p. 83-84. 

80. Ali A. Jalali, “Afghanistan: Regaining Momentum,” Parameters, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 2007-08, pp. 9-12.

81. Rashid, p. 325.

82. Afghanistan Reconstruction, Summary.

83. Ibid., p. 5.

84. Astri Suhrke, “A Contradictory Mission? NATO from Stabilization to Combat in Afghanistan,” International Peacekeeping, 

Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2008, p. 227.

85. McCaffrey, “After Action Report: Visit to Kuwait and Afghanistan, 10-18 November 2009,” p. 7.

86. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 2009 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, June 2009, Executive Summary. 

87. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: April 2010 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, April 2010, p. 73. 

88. Suhrke, p. 227.

89. Ibid., p. 228.

90. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, pp. xii-xiii.

91. Quoted in Ali A. Jalali, “Afghanistan: Regaining Momentum,” Parameters, Vol. 37, No. 4, Winter 2007-08, p. 9.
288

92. Report on Progress Toward Security and Stability in Afghanistan: June 2009 Report to Congress in Accordance with the 2008 National Defense Authorization Act, Washington, DC: Department of 

Defense, June 2009, p. 11. 

93. Ibid., p. 12.

94. McCaffrey, “After Action Report: Visit to Kuwait and Afghanistan, 10-18 November 2009,” p. 7.

95. Karen DeYoung, “A Puzzle for Congress,” The Washington 

Post National Weekly Edition, December 7-13, 2009, p. 19.

96. Amy Belasco, The Cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Other GWOT 

Operations Since 9/11, Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, RL33110, May 15, 2009, Summary.

97. Cordesman, p. 16. 

98. Ibid., p. 18.

99. Ibid.

100. Ibid.

101. Ibid., p. 17.

102. Ibid.

103. Ibid., p. 22.

104. McCaffrey, “After Action Report: Visit to Kuwait and Afghanistan, 10-18 November 2009,” p. 4.

105. A Bloomberg National Poll of 721 likely voters nationwide, conducted from October 7-10, 2010, with a margin of error 

of +/- 3 percent, available from www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm. 

Of the respondents, 31 percent felt “the U.S. can win.”

106. Quinnipiac University polls of June, July, and August 

2011, each with statistically significant sample sizes, available 

from www.pollingreport.com/afghan.htm.
289

PART III

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

As presently configured, the national security institutions of the U.S. government are still the institutions 

constructed to win the Cold War.

The 9/11 Commission Report, 20041

The history of the United States shows that in spite of 

the varying trend of the foreign policy of succeeding 

administrations, the Government has interposed or intervened in the affairs of other states with remarkable 

regularity.”

 Small Wars Manual of 19402

The U.S. Marine Corps

291

CHAPTER 8

COMMONLY PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

AND FAULTY ASSUMPTIONS

USG [United States Government] agencies may have 

different organizational cultures and . . . conflicting 

goals, policies, procedures, and decision-making techniques and processes. . . . Typically, USG agencies will 

coordinate among and between agencies and organizations if they share mutual interests, not because of 

some formalized C2 (command and control) system.

U.S. Joint Forces Command, 

 Commander’s Handbook for the 

 Joint Interagency Coordination Group, 

March 20073

Far from going unnoticed, the disjointed strategic 

guidance and disunified effort that have most often 

characterized the mission in Afghanistan are commonly recognized by most participants and observers alike. Moreover, these problems have not been 

limited to the Afghan theater of operations alone, as 

the U.S. Government’s major strategic and interagency shortcomings have also been readily apparent in 

other major endeavors of recent years. Among other 

examples, similar deficiencies have manifested themselves in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM, in the U.S. 

Government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, and in 

the reorganization of the U.S. intelligence community. 

Perhaps most famously, the U.S. Government’s poor 

interagency performance before and after the attacks 

of September 11, 2001 (9/11), was well documented 

by the 9/11 Commission in its careful report of 2004.4

In light of these and other serious shortfalls, numer-
292

ous national security reform initiatives have been set 

in motion, and other potential solutions proposed, 

each aimed at addressing one or more aspects of these 

broader strategic and interagency challenges. In some 

cases, these implemented corrective measures and 

the proposed reforms have focused upon enhancing 

strategic-level structures and systems, while in other 

cases the reforms are intended to achieve operationallevel or broader institutional effects. In any case, there 

has been no shortage of ideas or initiatives aimed at 

solving these major problems.

Unfortunately, however, each of these implemented or proposed measures falls short of what is 

actually needed to solve the fundamental structural 

and systemic issues. Specifically, the most commonly 

proposed solutions to the U.S. Government’s strategic 

and interagency problems fall short mainly because 

each fails to confront the underlying root causes of 

the problems directly. While these major challenges 

are recognized by almost everyone involved in the 

American national security community, the most commonly proposed solutions to the U.S. Government’s 

problems are likely to fail to overcome the structural 

and organizational deficiencies inherent in the existing processes. These proposed and ongoing reform 

measures generally fall into one of four categories, but 

they share in common the characteristic that they are 

all largely incremental in scope and substance. Furthermore, these proposed solutions also rest upon a 

set of faulty assumptions that combine to undermine 

their ultimate prospects for success.
293

COMMONLY RECOGNIZED PROBLEMS

In its landmark study published in 2004, the 9/11 

Commission emphasized the inappropriateness of fit 

between institutional structures built in 1947 for the 

post-World War II era and the more agile structures 

needed to deal with the emerging security threats of 

the 21st century. Highlighting a general lack of cooperation and integration among U.S. agencies and 

departments, before and after the attacks of 9/11, the 

Commission suggested that a major overhaul of the 

U.S. intelligence community and a concurrent reorganization of our nation’s homeland defense activities were warranted. The Commission also identified 

a need to reorganize and reinvigorate congressional 

oversight in the realm of national security.5

 The 9/11 

Commission’s report also offered a series of other 

major organizational recommendations, among them 

calls for unifying strategic intelligence and operational planning in a National Terrorism Center, unifying the intelligence community with a new National 

Intelligence Director, and creating a network-based 

information-sharing system. The Commission also 

recommended reinforcing the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and other homeland defenders to enable them to deal with the new emerging threats.6

In 2006, two other high-profile internal assessments 

drew many of the same conclusions. The reports of 

both the Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) and the 

“Katrina Lessons Learned” commission identified significant problems with interagency coordination and 

agency performance. As part of its broad review of 

the U.S. national security posture, the 2006 QDR specifically supported the creation of a National Security 

Officer corps intended “to effectively integrate and or-
294

chestrate the contributions of individual government 

agencies on behalf of larger national security interests.”7

 Reinforcing this view more recently, the Center 

for the Study of the Presidency & Congress’s “Project 

on National Security Reform” (PNSR), identified a variety of major and persistent systemic national security problems in its July 2008 preliminary findings. Each 

of these identified problems continues to contribute 

directly to the U.S. Government’s strategic disjointedness and its operational disunity of effort today. 

Among other concerns, the PNSR identified the 

lack of a robust national security strategy, the lack of 

a “common U.S. Government framework for delineating regional areas of responsibility,” and disjointed 

resource allocation processes as fundamental causes 

of recent national security shortfalls. The report also 

highlighted shortcomings in agency and interagency 

cultures, poor human resource development practices, and a wide variety of other major concerns that 

have combined to undermine the effectiveness of the 

U.S. national security apparatus and American strategic responses.8

 Of particular note, the PNSR also 

found that while the Policy Coordinating Committees, 

the Principals Committee, and the Deputies Committees of the National Security Council are supposed to 

conduct the major portion of coordinating agency and 

departmental effort, their formal work is typically “fueled by the briefing papers and issue papers generated by individual agencies and interagency working 

groups.”9

 In its essence, the PNSR identified five core 

problems in its assessment of the U.S. Government’s 

organization for national security. These major problems include: 

• A grossly imbalanced system that features 

strong departmental capabilities at the expense 

of interagency coordination and integration;
295

• Resource allocation decisions that are driven 

by agency and department core missions instead of broader or integrated national security 

requirements;

• A reliance on presidential intervention to compensate for the system’s inability to compel coordination and integration among agencies and 

departments;

• An overburdened White House staff that is 

unable to manage national security concerns, 

especially during presidential transitional periods; and,

• The fact that the legislative branch conducts its 

resource allocation and oversight functions in 

ways that reinforce these problems.10

Likewise, the PNSR also cited the inability of the 

President to delegate national security authority, the 

failure of the “lead federal agency” model, and the 

failure of the “czar” model as other key causes of these 

national security shortfalls.11 In the group’s follow-up 

recommendations of September 2009, the PNSR focused on reforms it claimed were “synergistic, practical, doable, and necessary.”12 Specifically, the group 

called for revisions in the form and substance of the 

national security strategies, an overhaul of the National Security Council (NSC) and its staff with emphasis on the body’s interagency role, and the linking of 

strategy to resources, among other reform recommendations.13 Adding to this strategic and interagency 

mix, still other observers have noted that there is no 

consensus just yet regarding the new boundaries of 

national security concerns in the 21st century’s global 

context.14 Accordingly, the United States must build 

agility and flexibility into its national security struc-
296

tures, rather than retaining structures and mandates 

that are stovepiped and unwieldy, having been designed originally as responses to the bipolar world of 

the Cold War era. 

FOUR CATEGORIES OF COMMONLY 

PROPOSED SOLUTIONS

Within the national security community, there are 

numerous initiatives underway aimed at improving 

the disjointed aspects of our national security systems, 

with many other potential reforms being seriously debated within policy circles, as well. Typically, each of 

these commonly proposed solutions falls into one of 

four categories.

Increasing Technical and Bureaucratic 

Synchronization.

One category of commonly proposed solutions to 

the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency problems emphasizes the goal of increasing departmental 

and agency synchronization. These technocratic approaches typically advocate the creation and adoption 

of new interagency checklists, common terminologies, 

and the realignment of operating procedures to bring 

departments and agencies more closely into alignment 

with one another. As an example of this approach, the 

State Department’s Office of Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS) issued The Post 

Conflict Reconstruction Essential Tasks Matrix in 2005, a 

compilation of the hundreds of different tasks that represent the actions and end-states required for a major 

nation-building mission.15 While certainly stunning in 

its breadth and depth, the matrix is also noteworthy 
297

for the fact that many of its required tasks do not correspond to any existing departmental or agency capabilities within the U.S. Government.

In this same category, others have suggested 

realigning the Department of State (State) and the 

Department of Defense (DoD) regional operational 

boundaries—or redrawing the theater-strategic and 

operational maps—to help facilitate common operating practices and unity of effort among those departments.16 Similar proposals have called for official 

interagency languages and terminologies, and still 

others have focused on the creation of standard operating checklists for the Joint Interagency Coordination 

Groups (JIACG) and other theater-strategic and operational-level interagency coordinating venues. The 

assumption that underlies these proposed solutions is 

that a lack of common understanding serves as a primary limitation on effective interagency coordination. 

With this idea in mind, S/CRS has been designated as the lead proponent for “The Whole of Government Lessons Learned Hub.” This knowledge center 

is intended to coordinate and facilitate the collection, 

dissemination, and sharing of reconstruction and stabilization best practices across the U.S. Government.17

Some observers have suggested that this approach 

might be unnecessarily limiting, since reconstruction 

and stabilization missions typically do not occur in 

isolation. Instead, these missions usually take place 

within the context of other operations, and so the 

thinking goes that this knowledge center might unintentionally narrow the perspective of these practitioners, rather than expand.18

Along similar lines, S/CRS was instrumental in 

the creation of another initiative called the U.S. Government Planning Framework for Reconstruction, Stabili-
298

zation, and Conflict Transformation. This approach uses 

the Interagency Conflict Assessment Framework (ICAF) 

and other assessment methods to analyze the operating environment. In many respects—and probably not 

coincidentally—the ICAF is very similar to the military’s decisionmaking process (MDMP) and its techniques for articulating policy options and assigning 

resources.19 In its essence, the ICAF is a broad-brush 

analytical framework that draws details regarding the 

scope of work from the S/CRS Essential Tasks Matrix. 

Other similar proposals in this category have included the Hart-Rudman Commission’s 2001 call for the 

creation of an interagency cadre called the National 

Security Service Corps (NSSC), with an emphasis on 

developing leaders “skilled at producing integrative 

solutions to U.S. national security problems.”20 More 

recently, the Center for Strategic and International 

Studies in its “Beyond Goldwater-Nichols” project 

expanded this call to include the creation of an interagency advisory group that would ensure that promotion rates for the NSSC were comparable to those 

within the parent organizations.21

In response to these calls, in 2007, the Bush administration initiated an interagency cadre program 

called the National Security Professional Development (NSPD) program. The program has not gotten 

much attention or interest since its inception.22 Two 

particular features have held the program back. First, 

is the fact that personnel from DoD, Foreign Service 

officers, and members of the intelligence community 

are excluded from the program because their parent 

organizations already have developmental programs. 

Secondly, participation in the program is voluntary 

for individuals, agencies, and departments, and to this 

point, few have signed up.23 The NSPD initiative also 
299

includes a small integration office and is projected to 

include an education and training consortium in the 

future. However, since the NSPD was launched by a 

Bush administration executive order and still has no 

actual legislative mandate, it struggles for this reason, 

as well.24 More recently, a proposal has gone before 

Congress that would authorize State to place personnel temporarily in an administrative holding area 

while the agency participates in this developmental 

experience. 

Increasing Non-DoD Agency Capabilities. 

A second set of proposed solutions to these national security problems focuses upon increasing the 

capabilities of agencies outside the DoD. Examples of 

these initiatives include the ongoing effort to create a 

Civilian Response Corps within State, as well as other 

proposals to scrap DoD’s geographic combatant command structure altogether in favor of a set of functional 

interagency commands. A perceived advantage of this 

approach would be its de-emphasis of the military’s 

role in nation-building or similar activities, while simultaneously enhancing the role of the ambassadors 

in each country and integrating all staffs at all levels. 

In creating the Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS), the primary goal 

was to give State an administrative and planning element capable of carrying out its statutory role as the 

lead federal agency for reconstruction and stabilization activities. In turn, S/CRS pushed for the creation 

of the Civilian Response Corps (CRC) and other related interagency coordinating teams, aimed at overcoming many of the parent agencies’ statutory limits 

on the authority to deploy and operate outside the 
300

United States. In order to surmount the inherent limitations on capacities and authorities among partner 

agencies and departments, S/CRS has also initiated a 

slate of training and educational opportunities aimed 

at increasing these other-than-DoD agency capabilities. Highlighted in the State internal report on reconstruction and stabilization improvements for 2009, the 

reconstruction and stabilization courses offered by S/

CRS for the Civilian Response Corps include orientation training, annual training, pre-deployment training, in-theater continuity training, and reintegration 

training. 25 In many ways, this approach closely parallels the military’s model for its own Reserve Component assets.

Similar non-DoD-centric proposals have included 

creating an altogether new independent government 

organization responsible for integrating civilian and 

military planning, or replacing the military-run geographic combatant commands with “regional Embassy-like teams with all agencies represented.”26 There 

are similar initiatives under consideration in many of 

the other agencies that are traditionally focused on 

domestic American operations but find themselves 

called upon to bring to bear their expertise in irregular warfare and nation-building operations overseas. 

Among these agencies are the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Justice, and a number of 

others. Seeking to achieve the benefits of the planning 

and operator culture that predominates in the DoD, 

State, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) have undertaken an effort to conduct 

organizational strategic planning in the form of a Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) 

patterned after the DoD’s QDR. 
301

At the same time, it is important to note that past 

efforts in this direction have frequently fallen short of 

their goals, often running into substantial obstacles 

in the form of dominant and resistant organizational 

cultural norms. As one high-profile example of such 

an outcome, Secretary of State Colin Powell attempted 

to introduce a more rigorous planning and operating culture at State during his tenure, but this effort 

ended with mixed and incomplete results upon his 

departure. Furthermore, to place the relative scope 

of these other-than-DoD changes into perspective, in 

2004 S/CRS began with just a few staff members, and 

by October 2007, it still only had about 80 personnel 

assigned to it.27 With about 200 personnel assigned to 

the office now, S/CRS stands in stark contrast to the 

tens of thousands of planners working at all levels of 

DoD. Of all of the proposals and potential solutions 

in this category, perhaps the most intriguing and 

promising variation on the theme has emphasized the 

need for increased on-the-job-training opportunities 

between DoD and non-DoD agencies. Representative 

of this idea, Lieutenant General William Caldwell of 

the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center, created an 

exchange program in which mid-career Army officers 

are sent to work in other-than-DoD agencies, while 

their counterparts attend Army training at Fort Leavenworth, KS.28

Finally, it is also worth noting that juxtaposed 

against these calls for developing other-than-DoD 

agency and department capabilities, there is another 

line of thinking that would push in the exact opposite 

direction. That is, some other analysts argue that instead, the solution should be to give the DoD the nation-building mission altogether and to resource the 

department appropriately for it.29 However, this ap-
302

proach would bring with it the various disadvantages 

already evident in the DoD’s current resource and capability dominance. Or as counterinsurgency expert 

John Nagl puts it, “If the only tool you have in your 

toolbox is a hammer, all problems begin to resemble 

nails.”30 This concern holds true whether the issue is 

viewed from an interagency perspective, a national 

strategic viewpoint, or internally to the DoD itself. 

In any event, the DoD has in fact developed new 

internal capabilities, among them; teams of agricultural development experts, Human Terrain Systems, 

and Human Terrain Teams, as well as other nontraditional areas of expertise. There is certainly room for 

further DoD innovations that will bring other value 

to the nation-building and irregular warfare mix, especially given the diverse skill sets of the military’s 

Reserve Component troops and their varied civilian 

occupations. However, these ancillary uses also serve 

to divert those troops from their existing core military 

requirements and competencies. At the same time, 

for other practical reasons related to the department’s 

ability to operate in non-permissive environments, the 

DoD is likely to remain the vehicle for enabling other 

agencies and departments to function within those environments. 

Increasing Key Leader Engagement and Oversight.

A third category of commonly proposed solutions 

to these national security problems emphasizes largely 

unrealistic calls for heightened senior leader attention, 

or more centralized management of irregular warfare 

and nation-building operations at the national level of 

government. Examples of this line of thinking include 

a proposal that would create a czar for interagency—
303

or a Deputy National Security Advisor for Interagency Affairs—as well as a similar approach that would 

create Crisis Action Teams (CATs) for each irregular 

warfare mission.31 Other proposals in this vein include proposals to expand the National Security Staff 

(NSS) of the NSC to give it a major role in managing 

the execution of these missions. Still other proposals 

call for increased leader emphasis and oversight, with 

some focusing on the role of the President and others 

highlighting the role of the Secretary of Defense. Proponents of this approach typically call for an increase 

in the priority given to these missions at the highest 

levels.32

In this same fashion, one recent response has been 

to assign responsibility for coordination and oversight 

of implementation of nation-building and irregular 

warfare operations to members of the White House 

staff. In the case of Afghanistan, Lieutenant General 

Douglas Lute served as an Assistant to the President 

and Deputy National Security Advisor for Iraq and 

Afghanistan.33 Another current technique is to designate a lead federal agency for a particular operation or 

issue area, a somewhat flexible concept that designates 

one agency or department as the lead for coordinating 

the efforts of multiple agencies.34 Along these lines, 

S/CRS has a permanent lead agency role for coordinating the planning and execution of complex reconstruction and stabilization contingencies.35 However, 

there are a number of problems with this approach in 

the case of S/CRS, since the office is neither an agency 

nor a department. As such, even its own parent organization—State—has not embraced the S/CRS’s leadership role.36 As noted above, it is also not usually the 

case that reconstruction and stabilization operations 

occur in isolation, thus complicating the notion of S/

CRS as a lead agency even further. 
304

Other recent proposals along these lines have included the idea of creating a Deputy Assistant to the 

President or an NSC Senior Director with responsibility for coordinating and integrating national security operations.37 Other similar proposals have called 

for the creation of a new Cabinet-level position and 

agency with direct control over modest resources to 

be used in common in the agencies with national security responsibilities.38 However, recent experiences 

with the appointment of czars and other centralizing 

initiatives have been checkered at best, and most serious analysts of the executive branch dispute the feasibility of asking senior decisionmakers to add even 

more supervisory responsibilities to their already 

overcrowded plates.

Increasing or Enhancing Interagency Coordinating 

Venues.

This fourth set of recommended solutions generally assumes that the U.S. Government’s national security problems are caused mainly by an inability of the 

key players to engage in constructive interagency dialogues. In this line of thinking, the lack of opportunities to coordinate and integrate agency efforts toward 

common ends occurs because of shortcomings in the 

bureaucratic mechanisms that facilitate that integration. Accordingly, this category of potential solutions 

usually focuses on creating or enhancing bureaucratic 

coordinating mechanisms to provide more and better venues for interagency coordination, or otherwise 

implementing enhanced (and usually more complex) 

rules for interagency interactions. As a prime example 

of this category of proposal, the Interagency Management System represents the most significant ongoing 
305

reform initiative aimed at providing additional and 

better interagency coordinating venues.

As the statutory lead federal entity for reconstruction and stabilization activities, State and its embedded S/CRS provided the impetus behind the initiation 

of the Interagency Management System (IMS). In its essence, the IMS is a negotiated interagency agreement 

that outlines the way in which U.S. Government departments and agencies should organize for reconstruction and stabilization planning and operations. 

The system consists of three interlinked elements, 

including a Washington-based Country Reconstruction and Stabilization Group (CRSG), the Integration 

Planning Cell (IPC) at the theater level, and the Advance Civilian Team (ACT) at the country level.39 As 

part of this interagency agreement, S/CRS also touts 

the Civilian Response Corps (CRC), which “gives the 

American people another way to share their skills 

with people in need while serving their country.”40

The core of this new reconstruction and stabilization 

response capability consists of the Active Response 

Corps (ARC) and the Standby Response Corps (SRC), 

including active U.S. Government employees with 

development skills from USAID and other relevant 

agencies. In 2007, there were a total of 33 employees 

in the ARC, while the second-tier SRC—personnel requiring 30 to 45 days notice before deployment—had 

approximately 90 personnel assigned to it.41

To place the limited current scope of this initiative 

into perspective, the Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 2008 (PL 110-417) 

expanded the CRC further, providing an initial $55 

million in funding to establish its Active and Standby 

components.42 The Fiscal Year 2009 (FY09) appropriations earmarked an additional $75 million for the de-
306

velopment of the CRC, including $45 million to State 

and $30 million to USAID.43 After the FY09 expansion, 

the funding supported a distribution of CRC-Active 

personnel that included a total of 250 personnel across 

State, Commerce, the Department of Justice, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of 

Health and Human Services, the Treasury, USAID, 

and the Department of Agriculture. 

In terms of its structure, the great majority of the 

CRC-Active personnel come from State, the Department of Justice, and USAID, with fewer than eight 

personnel coming from each of the other five agencies and departments represented in this element. For 

its own part, only 13 personnel from S/CRS itself are 

actually dedicated to the CRC initiative.44 The CRCStandby element was funded for 500 personnel in the 

Fiscal Year 2008 (FY08) supplemental and FY09 appropriations, with the ultimate goal being able to expand the CRC-Standby element to 2,000 personnel.45

CRC members are assigned to one of the three IMS 

structures, and when they are not engaged in actual 

S/CRS missions, they return to their parent agencies 

to continue preparing for any future reconstruction 

and stabilization duties.46

Although certainly representing steps in the right 

direction, these initiatives fall short in several ways. 

Among other limitations, the actual number of experts 

is very small, and their deployability is contractually 

limited. Furthermore, these personnel typically have 

very limited experience in carrying out the broad and 

complex tasks of nation-building and irregular warfare. For example, a civilian police officer from the 

United States is likely to be skilled at law enforcement, 

but he or she is not also likely to be skilled at standing 

up the other required elements of a civil justice sys-
307

tem. Nor is that civilian police officer likely to be able 

to direct the establishment of the administrative agencies needed to oversee each of those various elements. 

Reinforcing the magnitude of this challenge, the CRC 

task force identified 121 different sets of skills needed 

within its ranks.47 Lastly, the CRC is also limited in the 

sense that this fledgling institution comes with all of 

the administrative, training, and logistical challenges 

inherent in maintaining a reserve element of any kind.

Not surprisingly, S/CRS has to fight to maintain 

both its resources and its relevancy. For one reason, 

while the S/CRS has in fact deployed personnel to 

Afghanistan in support of reconstruction and stabilization activities, these personnel have not been utilized in the ways envisioned when this element was 

designed. Rather than deploying as coherent teams 

in accordance with the IMS conceptual design, the S/

CRS personnel have instead been used as individual 

staff augmenters. For example, about a dozen S/CRS 

personnel are assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, 

but these personnel serve as complementary staff, 

rather than holding significant authority over the reconstruction and stabilization activities. This use has 

dissipated the impact and viability of the S/CRS in at 

least two ways: its personnel are unavailable for other 

missions, and the office struggles to show its value.48

While the IMS is the most significant of the reform 

initiatives falling into this category of potential solution, there are other similar proposals that seek to 

enhance or formalize the existing interagency coordinating structures, as well. At the country level, the 

traditional model is the Country Team, centered on 

the U.S. embassies and falling under the authority of 

the Chief of Mission or Ambassador as the President’s 

designated representative. Similarly, the various geo-
308

graphic combatant commands already have the Joint 

Interagency Coordinating Group (JIACG), serving as 

the “combatant command’s designated lead organization for the interagency community, providing oversight, facilitation, coordination, and synchronization 

of agencies’ activities within the command among.”49

In reality, most combatant commands have come up 

with alternate methods for managing their interagency coordination other than this mechanism, since the 

partner agencies typically cannot commit the personnel needed to staff the JIACG on a full-time basis.50

At the operational level, the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) and various boards, bureaus, centers, 

cells, and working groups (B2C2WG) already serve as 

the primary interagency coordinating venues. 

With these existing interagency mechanisms in 

mind, other reform proposals include calls to standardize or enhance Country Team, JIACG, B2C2WG, 

or PRT structures, each with various goals in mind. 

Some of these goals include creating leadership opportunities for civilians; establishing guidelines that 

explain the roles, missions, and authority of team 

members; conducting significant joint pre-deployment and cultural awareness training; and, increasing 

civilian involvement on the teams.51 Other horizontal 

integration proposals include giving greater authority to Chiefs of Mission, or aligning the geographical regions of the different departments and creating 

regional ambassadors that correspond to the current 

geographic combatant commanders’ areas of responsibility. Still other proposals include the idea of 

strengthening the representation of civilian agencies 

within those commands.52 Another similar approach 

that has been suggested would be to create teams of 

leaders—or commander leader teams (CLTs)—who 
309

would be empowered to exercise the authorities of 

their respective agencies while taking advantage of 

enhanced knowledge or information management.53

In similar fashion, a 2008 Rand study of Afghanistan suggested a need to develop reconstruction teams 

featuring military and civilian representatives from 

DoD, State, USAID, the Department of Justice, the 

Department of Agriculture, and other relevant agencies.54 This study also recommended modifying the 

PRT structures by increasing the civilian developmental components of the teams and by lengthening their 

tours of duty. The study also recommended changes 

that would improve the cultural training of the teams, 

as well as increasing the number of teams in order to 

extend their reach.55 Another recent and similar approach has been to advocate extra-agency bodies for 

interagency coordination, such as the National Counterterrorism Center, with the intent of bringing together experts from various departments and agencies 

to coordinate intelligence activities and planning.56 In 

essence, each of these proposed reforms assumes that 

the major underlying obstacle to effective interagency 

integration is either a lack of venues for that integration, or a lack of bureaucratic rigor in managing the 

activities of the interagency participants.

Examined from a broader perspective, many of 

these ongoing reform measures and the other proposals for change represent significant and positive 

developments. However, each of them falls short of 

reorganizing the national security establishment in 

such a way that the key leaders are given the actual 

authority or resources needed to achieve success in 

nation-building and irregular warfare at the national, provincial, and local levels. Furthermore, none of 

these proposals really addresses the underlying lack 
310

of subject matter expertise that is needed to stand up 

viable economies, elements of the rule of law, national 

and local governing structures, and other required social and public institutions. Each of these components 

is needed to achieve success in these complex and 

demanding missions, and they represent capabilities 

not currently found in the various agencies or departments of the U.S. Government. 

With all of these inherent limitations in mind, 

many of the currently proposed initiatives are promising in some respects, but they simply do not go far 

enough. That is, many of these reforms fall into the 

category of “necessary but not sufficient,” in that they 

still do not overcome the numerous underlying and 

fundamental obstacles to coherent strategy formulation and effective interagency coordination. Nor do 

these potential solutions represent the robust resourcing of U.S. departments and agencies that is necessary 

to achieve success in these challenging nation-building and irregular warfare missions, given their scope 

and complexity. In this sense then, the various reforms 

and proposals under consideration really only nibble 

at the edges of the problem, as each rests upon a series 

of faulty and pervasive assumptions that will serve to 

undermine their ultimate prospects for success.

THE FAULTY ASSUMPTIONS 

In spite of their potential merits, the most frequently proposed solutions to the U.S. Government’s 

strategic and interagency problems depend upon the 

validity of a set of faulty assumptions that will likely 

undercut their prospects for success. In the process, 

these solutions generally fail to address the underlying root causes that have led to the strategic and inter-
311

agency problems in the first place. In particular, there 

are seven major faulty assumptions that underpin 

these solutions, each of which has implications for any 

feasible and effective solutions to the problems. 

Faulty Assumption #1.

Each of these solutions assumes away the major 

limitation that other-than-DoD agencies have in the 

fact that they cannot typically operate in non-permissive security environments. Even when escorted by 

military forces, experience in Afghanistan and Iraq 

shows that State, USAID, and other U.S. agencies are 

severely limited in their ability to operate throughout 

the theater of operations. This same limitation also extends to most contracted civilians employed by these 

agencies, because contracted personnel usually have 

caveats written into their contracts that prevent them 

from traveling outside the wire whenever threat levels 

indicate significant risk. 

Faulty Assumption #2.

Proponents of these commonly proposed solutions 

also typically assume that using DoD in a leading and 

directive role will necessarily militarize U.S. foreign 

policy, leading to longer-term problems with international legitimacy and allied relationships. But the 

advocates of the “anybody-but-DoD” line of thinking 

miss the point that more often than not, irregular warfare and nation-building take place in non-permissive 

security environments. As a result, the U.S. military 

will almost always serve as the vehicle for providing 

security to other U.S. agencies in these types of operating environments, if not the actual lead agent for 
312

the delivery of other aspects of the reconstruction and 

stabilization operations. Circumstances and capabilities should dictate the mix of agency and departmental assets to be utilized for a particular mission, rather 

than any preconceived notions about departmental or 

agency suitability.

Faulty Assumption #3.

Proponents of these solutions often assume that 

other government agencies have the expertise that is 

relevant and necessary for the tasks required by nation-building or irregular warfare. These major tasks 

include creating the elements for the rule of law, enhancing or developing local and national governance, 

bringing about broad economic development, and 

other aspects of the development of civil society. Unfortunately, this assumption is not true. For example, 

the U.S. Embassy in Kabul and its associated State Department agencies were given the responsibility for 

overseeing the development of key Afghan national 

ministerial agencies and provincial governing institutions. 

However, while the embassy personnel and their 

counterparts proved to be adept at their core competencies of strategic-level policy coordination, communications, and reporting, they were far less proficient 

at the task of developing Afghan governance. These 

shortfalls were obvious, whether the development of 

governmental institutions was viewed at the national, 

provincial, or local levels. Likewise, these institutional 

limitations were evident in the State mentoring effort, 

the quality of its operational planning, and the lack of 

resolution in the department’s tracking mechanisms. 

The State core competency of conducting foreign 
313

policy clearly does not equate to the ability to build 

foreign governmental capacity, especially below the 

national strategic level. This same type of limitation 

also applies equally to other U.S. departments and 

agencies, including the DoD. 

Faulty Assumption #4.

Another pervasive assumption that underpins the 

commonly proposed solutions to the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency problems is the idea 

that the lack of coordination is merely due to a lack of 

venues for coordination and dialogue. As this line of 

thinking goes, if we can just get all of the U.S. agencies 

to sit down together on a routine basis or if we give 

them just the right checklists or operating procedures, 

then they will likely arrive at a consensus regarding 

the actions to be taken and settle on a common vision for the desired strategic or operational end-state. 

Experience shows that this assumption is not true either, even within agencies with nominally hierarchical relationships, such as State and USAID. Instead, 

the more common scenario is for agencies to disagree 

over their visions, and to opt out when decisions are 

made that contradict those visions. Where there is no 

forcing function to compel cooperation or unified effort, it rarely occurs.

Faulty Assumption #5.

Another related assumption is the idea that if the 

various departments and agencies do in fact arrive at 

a common interpretation of the problem or at least 

a common vision for the operational end-state, they 

will then pool their resources and work together to 

contribute toward the accomplishment of the related 
314

tasks. Again, experience shows that without a forcing 

function to compel agencies to integrate their operations, it is more likely that the various organizations 

will merely continue to “do what they do,” pursuing 

their own goals and objectives in accordance with their 

own operating procedures and internal organizational incentives. It is also often the case that interagency 

agreements at one level of the U.S. Government do 

not make their way to the operators lower in the organizational hierarchy. Even when these interagency 

agreements are understood by the operator-level 

participants, those agreements are often ignored. In 

sum, agency personnel do not typically pull together 

toward common objectives or a common vision without some strong incentive or mutual interest to do so, 

given a lack of statutory compulsion. Instead, everything is a negotiation.

Faulty Assumption #6.

The most frequently proposed solutions also assume away the problems associated with multiple 

points of entry into the U.S. Government in the operational theaters. Host-nation leaders, host-nation 

agencies, allies, intergovernmental organizations, 

and nongovernmental organizations each seek to 

exploit the seams between U.S. agencies. That is, the 

leaders of these organizations will often agency-shop 

from leader to leader or agency to agency until they 

get the answer or decision they want. Given the different agencies’ independent resources and agendas, 

the currently proposed solutions to the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency challenges will not 

address this common problem directly. These external 

influences matter; the interagency process does not 

take place in a static environment.
315

Faulty Assumption #7.

Some of these solutions also assume that placing a 

senior leader from State or USAID into a geographic 

or functional combatant leadership position would 

somehow automatically enable that person to lead 

at the theater-strategic or operational levels. Instead, 

leaders from State, USAID, and other key departments and agencies will need formal training and relevant developmental assignments before they will be 

capable of exercising those major leadership responsibilities. For example, experience as a field operative 

in USAID is not the same as understanding the operational-level or strategic-level requirements of nationbuilding or irregular warfare. Likewise, bringing in 

ex-USAID contractors or current USAID employees to 

work toward those ends merely reinforces the status 

quo. In sum, the agencies’ efforts are currently limited 

by organizational cultures and existing core compentencies, which are not well matched with the broader 

requirements of nation-building and irregular warfare. In much the same way, the heavy reliance on 

contractors presents related challenges.

As one final systemic challenge to these proposed 

solutions to the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency difficulties, the congressional oversight 

mechanisms for interagency operations are typically 

very weak. In particular, the current system for oversight still focuses primarily on budget requests that 

come to Congress agency by agency, rather than coming to the appropriators holistically or systemically.57

As a consequence of these institutional arrangements, 

even when the various actors’ intentions are good, it 

is unlikely that the mission will be understood and ex-
316

ecuted uniformly by all of the players, given their options and incentives to act to the contrary. Viewed in 

the extreme, most of these potential solutions merely 

provide the opportunity for more dialogue, since none 

of them actually mandates coordination or enforces 

any resulting interagency integration. If the goals of 

national security reform are to achieve coherently formulated strategy and a unity of effort among the U.S. 

Government’s departments and agencies, then these 

solutions do not go far enough.

THE BOTTOM LINE: POSITIVE BUT 

INSUFFICIENT STEPS

Taken together, these ongoing and proposed national security reform initiatives offer a variety of 

promising developments. For those agency personnel who have been involved in the execution of the 

interagency process at the operational level, however, 

it is hard to imagine that adding additional coordinating bodies, increasingly complex checklists and 

plans, or additional presidential directives will result 

in more effective interagency operations in the field. 

More pointedly, as long as agency personnel remain 

ultimately accountable to the home office instead of 

leaders on the ground, and as long as the agencies in 

question do not have the opportunities to develop the 

relevant operational level and strategic level expertise 

needed to carry out the complex and daunting challenges of nation-building and irregular warfare, these 

operations will remain disjointed and ineffective. 

Put bluntly, the U.S. Government already has plenty of plans, checklists, directives, and coordinating 

mechanisms related to strategy formulation and the 

interagency process in place. However, there remains 
317

little bureaucratic incentive or statutory compulsion 

to “buy in” to the interagency agenda among the departments or agencies in the field. As a result, each 

of the currently proposed solutions represents more 

“hope” than they do “method,” since history and human nature discount the notion that merely creating 

more venues for interagency dialogue will generate 

consensus or more effective integration. Instead, this 

basic assumption not only misreads history and human nature, but also ignores the practical experience 

gleaned from Afghanistan, Iraq, and other recent national security operations.

Even more directly, the realities of the existing organizational cultures of key agencies, their levels of 

expertise in the areas relevant to nation-building and 

irregular warfare, their comparative levels of resources in budgets and personnel, and the core tasks that 

currently define the central activities of these agencies 

all represent structural impediments that will prevent 

the commonly proposed solutions from succeeding. 

Consequently, any truly effective solution will necessarily involve revising agency mandates, consolidating lines of authority, building relevant expertise and 

resources within the appropriate agencies, aligning 

incentive structures, and decentralizing authority and 

execution. Consistent with this view, any feasible and 

effective solutions to the U.S. Government’s strategic 

and interagency difficulties will have to address the 

specific root causes of the strategic disjointedness and 

disunity of effort that have led to the problems in the 

first place. In their essence, these root causes include:

• The failure of the current processes of strategy 

formulation to identify and link interests, ends, 

ways, means, and risks, either within any one 

national security operation or across the spectrum of global threats to U.S. national security;
318

• A fragmented and ineffective task organization 

that fails to provide key leaders with the statutory leverage needed to direct other agency 

resources and personnel, a situation that renders the existing structures and processes for 

interagency coordination and integration ineffective;

• A serious mismatch between the capabilities, 

resources, and expertise required for nationbuilding and irregular warfare and the existing 

capabilities, resources, and expertise of the departments and agencies of our government;

• A similar mismatch between existing agency 

and departmental organizational cultures and 

the requirements of nation-building and irregular warfare;

• An inability of other-than-DoD agencies and 

departments to operate effectively, if at all, 

in the non-permissive security environments 

typical of most nation-building and irregular 

warfare operations;

• Misaligned professional and career incentives 

within many agencies and departments that 

promote and reward in-house assignments at 

the expense of interagency assignments;

• Misaligned incentive structures within national-level coordinating bodies, as national-level 

budgetary and policy debates focus upon jurisdiction and resource allocation rather than 

broader strategic or operational concerns;

• Bottom-up interagency coordinating processes 

at the national, theater, and operational levels 

that engage key leaders late in decisionmaking 

processes, thus diminishing the focus and effectiveness of interagency coordination;
319

• A lack of sustained institutional political, economic, and cultural awareness and understanding, including any enduring institutional subject matter expertise tied to national, regional, 

or transnational actors;

• A major disproportionate allocation of resources among the various agencies, a situation that 

reinforces DoD dominance at the operational 

level while also leading to a corresponding disproportionate focus on security operations to 

the detriment of other key nation-building and 

irregular warfare objectives;

• A lack of formal developmental education and 

training opportunities for agency and departmental personnel charged with interagency 

planning and operational responsibilities;

• A lack of key and developmental operational 

and planning assignment opportunities for 

other-than-DoD personnel charged with senior 

supervisory and management responsibilities 

in nation-building and irregular warfare;

• Inadequate controls and supervision over contractors, as well as poorly written contracts that 

pay for process rather than outcomes or results;

• Generally centralized budgetary and operational approval processes that place the ultimate authority for budget execution and operational design in Washington, thus limiting the 

flexibility and responsiveness of local operators 

and their ability to tailor operational solutions 

to conditions on the ground;

• Inadequate national-level executive branch 

planning and oversight structures that yield ineffective national strategies and operational directives, while also failing to set clear objectives 
320

and to enforce compliance and accountability; 

and,

• Inadequate and ineffective congressional structures and processes for authorizations, appropriations, and oversight, a system that reinforces the schisms between the various agencies 

and departments of the U.S. Government while 

failing to set and enforce measures of mission 

progress.

In closing, it is possible that the U.S. Government’s 

Cold War-era national security structures and processes may have been sufficient to provide cookiecutter responses to relatively homogenous Soviet-era 

threats. However, the U.S. Government’s current institutional arrangements are not nearly agile or flexible enough to provide the measured and tailored 

responses that will be needed to confront the full 

spectrum of threats that our nation is likely to face in 

the 21st century. Outlining this same sentiment in testimony before the House Armed Services Committee 

in 2007, S/CRS leader Ambassador John Herbst called 

for a Goldwater-Nichols-like approach to achieve true 

unity of effort across the U.S. Government—3 years 

after S/CRS came into existence.58 Yet, several years 

later, it is still the case that nobody is truly in charge, 

even as the end-state vision for these missions continues to drift, with little in the way of accountability 

mechanisms to force or gauge compliance among the 

various actors. Accordingly, the bottom line here is 

that as long as any planned or proposed reform measure fails to address these significant root causes of 

our strategic disjointedness and interagency disunity, 

those reforms will remain likely to fail to overcome 

either problem.
321

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 8

1. The 9/11 Commission Report, Official Government Edition, 

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, p. 399. 

2. Quoted in Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, 

Santa Monica, CA: Rand Corporation, National Defense Research 

Institute Press, 2008, p. 132.

3. U.S. Joint Forces Command, Commander’s Handbook for the 

Joint Interagency Coordination Group, Norfolk, VA: Joint Warfighting Center, March 1, 2007, p. II-2. Portions of this chapter first 

appeared in the author’s “Filling Irregular Warfare’s Interagency 

Gaps,” Parameters, Vol. 39, No. 3, Autumn 2009, pp. 65-80. The author is grateful to Parameters for the permission to reprint portions 

of his arguments here.

4. Catherine Dale, Nina Serafino, and Pat Towell, “Organizing the U.S. Government for National Security: Overview of the 

Interagency Reform Debates,” Congressional Research Service (CRS) 

Report for Congress, RL34455, Washington, DC: CRS, April 18, 

2008, p. 2.

5. The 9/11 Commission Report, Official Government Ed., Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, pp. 399-400.

6. Ibid.

7. Catherine Dale, “Building an Interagency Cadre of National Security Professionals: Proposals, Recent Experience, and 

Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service (CRS) Report 

for Congress, RL 34565, Washington, DC: CRS, July 8, 2008, p. 9.

8. Project on National Security Reform, Preliminary Findings, 

Washington, DC: Center for the Study of the Presidency & Congress, July 2008, pp. 69-90.

9. Ibid., p. 33.

10. Ibid., pp. 30-31.
322

11. Ibid., pp. 48-49.

12. Project on National Security Reform, Turning Ideas into Action, Washington, DC: Center for the Study of the Presidency & 

Congress, September 2009, p. ix.

13. Ibid.

14. Dale, Serafino, and Towell, p. 3.

15. Thomas S. Szayna, Derek Eaton, and Amy Richardson, 

Preparing the Army for Stability Operations, Santa Monica, CA: 

Rand Corporation, 2007, p. xv.

16. John E. Pulliam, “Lines on a Map: Regional Orientations 

and U.S. Interagency Cooperation,” USAWC Strategy Research 

Project, Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College, March 2005.

17. Report to Congress on Implementation of Title XVI of P.L. 110-

147, The Reconstruction and Stabilization Civilian Management Act of 

2008, Washington, DC: Department of State, May 9, 2009.

18. Discussion with Colonel Mike McMahon, who suggested 

this point.

19. Report to Congress on Implementation of Title XVI of P.L. 110-

147.

20. Dale, p. 4.

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., p. 9.

23. Ibid., pp. 11-12.

24. Ibid., p. 13.

25. Report to Congress on Implementation of Title XVI of P.L. 110-

147.
323

26. Stephen J. Flanagan and James A. Schear, eds., Strategic 

Challenges: America’s Global Security Agenda, Washington, DC: 

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS)/National Defense 

University Press, 2008, p. 303.

27. John Herbst, Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization, in prepared testimony given before the Subcommittee on 

Oversight and Investigation of the House Armed Services Committee on October 30, 2007, p. 2.

28. This program was identified to me by Colonel Mike McMahon.

29. John F. Troxell, “Presidential Decision Directive-56: A 

Glass Half Full,” Chap. 2 in Joseph R. Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, 

eds., The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction Roles, Carlisle, PA: Strategic 

Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2007, p. 26, 

available from www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

30. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, Chicago, IL: University 

of Chicago Press, 2005 Ed., p. 203.

31. Flanagan and Schear, eds., p. 303.

32. Ibid., p. 321.

33. Dale, Serafino, and Towell, p. 9.

34. Ibid.

35. Ibid.

36. Colonel Mike McMahon made this observation.

37. Dale, Serafino, and Towell, p. 14.

38. Ibid.

39. Herbst, p. 3.
324

40. Ibid., p. 6.

41. Ibid., p. 5.

42. Report to Congress on Implementation of Title XVI of P.L. 110-

147.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Ibid.

47. Herbst, p. 6.

48. Colonel Mike McMahon related this background information pertaining to the S/CRS to me. 

49. Joint Warfare Center (JWFC) Pamphlet 6: Doctrinal Implications of the Joint Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG), Norfolk, 

VA: Joint Warfare Center, June 27, 2004, p. 5.

50. Colonel Mike McMahon provided this background information to me. 

51. Carlos Hernandorena, “U.S. Provincial Reconstruction 

Teams in Afghanistan, 2003-2006: Obstacles to Interagency Cooperation,” Chap. 5 in Joseph R. Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, eds., 

The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, 

Transition, and Reconstruction Roles, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2007, pp. 145-154, 

available from www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

52. Dale, Serafino, and Towell, p. 14.

53. Zeb B. Bradford, Jr., and Frederic J. Brown, America’s 

Army: A Model for Interagency Effectiveness, Westport, CT: Praeger, 

2008, p. 211.
325

54. Seth G. Jones, Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, Santa 

Monica, CA: Rand Corporation’s National Defense Research Institute Press, 2008, p. 130.

55. Ibid., p. 131.

56. Dale, Serafino, and Towell, p. 9.

57. Ibid., p. 13.

58. Herbst, p. 2.

327

CHAPTER 9

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS OF

ANY FEASIBLE AND EFFECTIVE SOLUTION

A government ill-executed, whatever it may be in 

theory, must be, in practice, a bad government. . . . 

The ingredients which constitute energy in the executive are unity; duration; an adequate provision for its 

support; and competent powers. 

Alexander Hamilton, 

The Federalist #701

Overcoming the U.S. Government’s strategic disjointedness and disunity of effort will require much 

more than cosmetic changes. In fact, any truly feasible 

and effective solution to the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency problems will need to include 

a variety of essential, substantive elements in order to 

succeed—elements corresponding directly to the underlying structural causes that are at the root of these 

problems. Aimed at achieving the twin goals of strategic coherence and the true “whole of government” 

approaches needed to address the emerging threats 

to America’s national security, these reforms will ultimately require policy changes, shifts in resource allocation priorities, and organizational structural changes in order to be truly effective. Chief among these 

desired changes will be shifts in jurisdiction and organization that will create a true unity of command. As 

history shows, while there have been many attempts 

in the past to make fragmented executive authority 

work, few of these arrangements have ever succeeded, 

and then, never for long. More directly, U.S. national 

security is too important to rely upon the hope that an 
328

executive-by-committee will yield a common vision 

or unified execution of that vision. Nevertheless, that 

is the de facto system that currently exists.

At the same time, achieving unity of command 

will not be enough by itself. American national security is also too important—and too complex—to allow 

one national instrument of power to predominate, 

whether that dominance comes as a consequence of 

remarkably disproportionate resourcing or as a result of an overreliance on the military’s far superior 

planning and operating capabilities and its missionoriented organizational culture. Once again, history 

illustrates that when the different elements of the U.S. 

Government are given the latitude to pursue their 

own visions, agendas, or interests, it is a rare case in 

which those agencies and departments see things the 

same way or act in concert. Given the American military’s incredible advantage in resources and organizational capabilities, it typically does not matter very 

much whether the other-than-Department of Defense 

(DoD) agencies and departments see things differently, anyway. Our system is clearly out of balance, and 

any feasible and effective solution to the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency problems will have 

to enhance the resources and capabilities of the otherthan-DoD agencies and departments to enable them 

to meet the demands of these challenging missions. 

With each of these ideas in mind, achieving success 

in future nation-building and irregular warfare operations—as well as other emerging national security 

challenges for that matter—will require substantial 

changes to the U.S. Government’s organization. These 

essential elements of change will necessarily stretch 

across the whole of the national security apparatus, 

encompassing a set of broader institutional changes 
329

as well as specific reforms at the strategic, theater-strategic, and operational levels. At the same time, any 

package of reforms will also have to be structured and 

implemented in such a way as to enable those changes 

to overcome likely political resistance to their adoption and the practical obstacles to their implementation. This final proposition represents no small challenge in of itself.

FIRST PRINCIPLES: THE THEORY AND 

PRACTICE OF THE UNITARY EXECUTIVE

As careful students of history who had also experienced the British government’s abuses of political and 

military power firsthand, America’s Constitutional 

Founders were primarily concerned with creating a 

system of separated, shared, and fragmented powers that would ultimately minimize the potential for 

abuse of authority. At the same time, the Founders 

were also experienced practitioners of government 

themselves, and had similarly witnessed firsthand the 

major failures of the fragmented colonial executive 

structures that were a fairly common feature of that 

era. The Constitutional Convention had convened 

largely for the purpose of amending or replacing the 

ineffective Articles of Confederation, an arrangement 

that allowed the nominal national governmental leaders to set policy without giving them any corresponding resources, leverage, or statutory authority to enforce compliance. Abandoning the toothless Articles 

and their original mandate altogether, the Founders 

sought to craft a workable alternative framework for 

a U.S. Government that would protect against the potential abuse of authority while also enabling the government to govern effectively. 
330

In the Founders’ view, and one supported by the 

lessons of history and their own governing experience, the safest course of action was to fragment the 

legislative authority severely. This first principle has 

translated into the modern U.S. Congress’s bicameral structure of 100 senators and 435 representatives. 

However, the Founders very clearly drew the line at 

fragmenting executive authority. Rather than dividing 

the executive branch in any way, they wisely created a 

unitary executive instead, intentionally vesting the executive authority in one person. This single executive 

would exercise the powers of the office in accordance 

with the limits provided and enforced by the legislative branch, retaining broad and largely unconstrained 

executive authority in the vaguely worded Article II 

of The U.S. Constitution. As Alexander Hamilton noted 

in The Federalist #70, many colonies and other egalitarian societies of the past had implemented various organizational schemes that sought to divide executive 

power among different actors within government. 

However, none of these schemes had ever succeeded. 

Hamilton pointedly observed that whatever one of 

these fragmented executive arrangements might have 

been in theory, all had uniformly failed in practice. 

He further noted that these schemes had ultimately 

failed, regardless of the good intentions of the designers or the particular details of the fragmented structures had been implemented.2 So in a framework for 

governance that otherwise placed a premium on the 

separation and fragmentation of power, the Founders drew the line at the executive. They knew that any 

system that divided executive authority would be inefficient and ineffective.

In making this argument, Hamilton analyzed the 

structure needed for an effective executive branch, 
331

and he applied empirical evidence gleaned both from 

a close reading of the failures of fragmented executive 

leadership over history as well as an observation of the 

struggles among the colonies to make his case. Specifically, Hamilton identified four essential elements 

needed in order to realize energetic—or effective—

executive leadership. These four essential elements 

include: (1) unity; (2) duration; (3) an adequate provision for support; and, (4) competent powers.3 Unity

in this case refers to mathematical unity. Reviewing 

history, the Founders concluded that the only effective executive is one person, ultimately responsible 

for exercising the executive authority but also able to 

exercise the powers as he or she sees fit, within prescribed limits.

In addition to unity, duration refers to the idea of a 

fixed period of executive authority and responsibility, 

along with the features of periodic scrutiny, performance review, and accountability by higher authority. An adequate provision for support refers to both the 

emoluments of office, as well as a sufficient supporting staff, to enable the executive to succeed. The element of competent powers refers to the idea of providing the executive with sufficient authority to carry 

out the specific responsibilities of the office, without 

circumscribing or limiting those powers in a way that 

prevents the mission from being accomplished. In 

sum, Hamilton argued that history discounts the notion, or the hope, that merely creating enough venues 

for dialogue will generate consensus, more effective 

coordination, or any effective execution of complex 

governmental operations.

In the modern case, every current U.S. Government 

manual or set of guidelines tiptoes around the fragmented executive authority that is characteristic of the 
332

American government’s organization for national security. Although once anticipated as a document that 

might potentially make inroads into this major organizational limitation, the Obama administration’s Presidential Policy Directive (PPD)-1 of 2009 established (or 

reestablished) Interagency Policy Committees, but the 

guidance gives no real authority or leverage to those 

committees. Likewise, not one of the reform initiatives 

currently underway actually changes any statutory 

relationships in any substantive way. 

Of course, the Founders’ vision for national security was one that included the President actually marching in the field as commander in chief of the nation’s 

military when needed, much as President Washington 

actually did in response to the Whiskey Rebellion in 

western Pennsylvania in 1794. Given the scope and 

reach of the U.S. Government’s executive branch today, the President’s modern designated national security executors must be given the same leverage and 

authority originally intended for the executive to be effective. At the same time, these executive agents must 

be subject to the due dependence on the people—the 

Congress and the President—that the Founders identified centuries ago as the keys to effectiveness and accountability. Although the technology and the scope 

of the work have changed, human nature has not.

Examining these same issues in a more modern 

context, renowned political scientist (and former 

naval officer) James Q. Wilson tried to identify why 

some bureaucratic agencies successfully carried out 

their missions while others failed. Scrutinizing armies, 

schools, and prisons as representative bureaucratic 

organizations, Wilson attributes the success of the 

German army against the French in World War II to 

an organizational culture that combined universally 
333

understood objectives with decentralized operational 

planning and execution.4

Citing military historian Martin van Creveld’s 

careful analysis, Wilson attributes the German army’s 

success against the French to the Germans’ missionoriented command system. This mission-focused command system was one in which higher commanders 

expressed their intent in an unmistakable way, after 

which they afforded their subordinate commanders 

wide latitude in making personnel, resource allocation, and operational planning decisions. In this way, 

these commanders were able to take advantage of their 

subordinates’ proximity to the situation and their better understanding of circumstances on the ground.5

 In 

turn, these subordinate commanders also stressed independent decisionmaking, decentralizing authority 

down to the lowest levels, while also holding subordinates strictly accountable for the consequences of their 

actions and punishing them severely for infractions.6

These concepts of clearly articulated guidance and 

decentralized command are clearly relevant to the 

current problems with the U.S. Government’s organization for national security. It is essential that the 

U.S. Government unify its own operational effort by 

decentralizing operations after aligning them with 

clear strategic goals that are both plainly defined and 

universally understood. With this goal in mind, relevant first principles for any effective reforms include 

achieving unity of effort through operational-level 

unity of command, after centralizing and operationalizing a more robust and coherent strategic planning 

effort at the national level. 

At the same time, the resulting strategies must 

acknowledge the realities of available agency and departmental capabilities, and national-level resource 
334

decisions must be aligned with both current and projected requirements. The U.S. Government must get 

back in the habit of explicitly and rationally linking vital interests to ends, ways, and means, all while placing these elements of national strategy into the context 

of risk. Once those strategic choices are made, the authority for operational-level decisionmaking must be 

decentralized, along with control over resource utilization. From an institutional perspective, the various 

departments and agencies must be given adequate 

opportunities for education, training, professional development, and the other elements needed to achieve 

success. To achieve these ends, a bottom-up review 

of the U.S. Government’s national security apparatus 

should be undertaken, with a primary goal of inventorying and cataloguing roles, functions, resources, and 

capabilities in U.S. Governmental agencies and departments. Every office of the U.S. Government must 

clearly understand its role and requirements, whether 

functioning as operators, planners, capabilities-providers, enablers, or sustainers. Every player must understand his or her role.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS: THE BROADER 

INSTITUTIONAL REQUIREMENTS

These relevant first principles should serve as the 

general guidelines to frame any feasible and effective 

reforms of the American government’s national security apparatus. However, the actual specific changes 

needed to operationalize those guiding principles will 

ultimately require various essential elements of reform at each of the different levels of national security 

activity if those reforms are to succeed. Beginning at 

the broader institutional level—and acknowledging 
335

the realities of the key organizations’ existing mandates, cultures, expertise, resources, and career incentives—there are a variety of essential elements of reform that will need to stretch across all of the relevant 

departments and agencies and occur at all levels of 

activity. From this broader institutional perspective, 

any feasible and effective package of national security 

reforms will need to feature elements that enable all of 

the agencies and departments with national security 

responsibilities to achieve a number of key outcomes, 

including:

• The development of the organic nation-building, irregular warfare, and interagency expertise needed to meet each organization’s responsibilities;

• The creation of professional career incentives 

and opportunities for interagency service, with 

demonstrated effectiveness in those assignments leading to promotion and advancement 

into senior positions of responsibility;

• The reorganization, development, and maintenance of organizational staffs to provide 

adequate personnel depth to meet the requirements of the interagency operations and functions;

• The creation of mechanisms for training and 

professionally educating key leaders and staff 

in interagency, nation-building, and irregular 

warfare responsibilities, along with mandating 

participation in that training;

• The establishment and support of an interagency and irregular warfare center for lessons 

learned, an initiative that is actually underway 

within S/CRS;
336

• A statutory redirection of agency and department incentives from their internal processes, 

agendas, and goals to national security goals;

• The creation of immersion training for otherthan-DoD personnel in settings that will provide the opportunities needed for those agencies and departments to develop the operating 

and planning culture common to DoD;

• The creation of on-the-job training (OJT) in the 

specific tasks required of interagency coordination, nation-building, and irregular warfare, 

including the development of institutional expertise in the development of social, political, 

economic, and security institutions;

• The realignment of the geographic areas of 

responsibility and operational and functional 

subdivisions of all agencies and departments 

of the U.S. Government with national security 

responsibilities to create a common operating 

picture and functionality;

• The development and maintenance of enduring 

professional expertise among the various agencies and departments corresponding to that 

geographic and functional realignment, including in-house subject matter expertise related to 

the key countries, regions, transnational actors, 

functions, and operations;

• The redirection of sufficient resources to enable 

other-than-DoD agencies and departments to 

carry out their nation-building and irregular 

warfare functions;

• The decentralization of budget execution, giving funding control to leaders at levels directly 

in contact with the problems being solved, subject to strict oversight and accountability and 

severe sanctions for fraud, waste, or abuse;
337

• The implementation of true unity of command, 

ceding operational control of personnel and 

resources to the leaders of all agencies and departments charged with meeting operational 

objectives;

• The development and adoption of administrative mechanisms that afford other agency 

leaders the ability to contribute directly and 

substantively to the performance evaluations 

of the other agency personnel assigned to their 

operational control;

• The revision of job descriptions and employee 

contracts to give other-than-DoD agencies and 

departments the ability to assign certain key 

and essential employees to serve in overseas 

postings and in non-permissive security environments when designated for such service, 

after adequate training and preparation; and,

• The adjustment of standard operating procedures within the interagency coordinating bodies at the various levels of national security activity and organizational guidelines to require 

agency and departmental participation while 

also balancing the bottom-up activities of those 

groups with top-down direction from the key 

leaders.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS: THE NATIONAL 

STRATEGIC LEVEL

At the national strategic level of activity, any feasible and effective package of national security reforms 

will need to feature elements that enable the U.S. Government to achieve a number of other equally important outcomes, among them: 
338

• The creation of far more robust national strategic planning capabilities;

• An operationalized national security strategy, 

or the creation and wide dissemination of a 

precise, concise, and complete statement of 

national strategic intentions, priorities, and objectives—a document that formally links U.S. 

national security interests with ends, ways, 

means, and risks while outlining specific organizational responsibilities, capabilities, and 

resources;

• The modification of national strategic planning 

processes and structures to enable those structures to generate orders that provide agencies 

and departments with clear, task-driven, and 

unmistakable strategic-level statements of intent, responsibility, authority, objectives, and 

measures of success;

• The decentralization of operational control over 

personnel and resources to subordinate leaders, 

while also holding those subordinate leaders 

directly accountable for progress in achieving 

clearly defined operational objectives;

• The establishment of binding and universally 

understood mechanisms of accountability, 

making those metrics more robust and comprehensive;

• The creation of theater-specific playbooks, including sets of objectives and metrics that will 

get agencies and departments pulling toward 

the same ends; and,

• The reorganization of congressional oversight, 

focusing on specific metrics and objectives, as 

well as agency performance and required capabilities.
339

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS: THE THEATERSTRATEGIC AND OPERATIONAL LEVELS

Similarly, at the theater-strategic and operational 

levels of activity, any feasible and effective package 

of national security reforms will need to include elements that enable the key leaders at those levels 

to achieve effective interagency performance and a 

whole of government approach to planning and operations. Among other important outcomes, any reforms should enable:

• The integration of other agency personnel 

throughout all geographic and functional combatant commands;

• Key leaders to exercise operational control over 

other agency personnel to realize true unity of 

vision and effort;

• The development of leaders in other-than-DoD 

agencies and departments for senior interagency and leadership responsibilities, including 

experience in planning, management, oversight, and the interagency process;

• The development of a deep bench of nationbuilding, irregular warfare, and interagency 

specialists on the embedded staffs of all the 

relevant agencies and departments operating 

at the theater and operational levels, a process 

that will take years to bring to fruition;

• The development of theater- and operationallevel one-stop shopping for strategy and operational guidance, a concise but complete 

document that lays out the broader goals and 

specific objectives and is required reading for 

all personnel assigned to the theater or operational headquarters; and,
340

• The development of enduring cultural expertise, language capabilities, and other social, political, and economic knowledge in each of the 

headquarters.

ESSENTIAL ELEMENTS: PRACTICAL AND 

POLITICAL CONSIDERATIONS

In order to be adopted and implemented, any 

solution to the U.S. Government’s strategic and interagency problems must also include features that 

will enable the package of reforms to overcome likely 

practical and political obstacles. Among other functional considerations, the practical obstacles to this 

proposal center largely on the glaring lack of relevant 

expertise among the agencies and departments needed to carry out the demands of nation-building and 

irregular warfare tasks. These shortfalls are also coupled with the existing DoD-centered combatant command structure and its limits on career incentives and 

senior leadership opportunities for non-DoD personnel. In other words, non-DoD personnel do not currently have significant opportunities for developing 

the operational and strategic planning or operating 

experience that becomes second nature in DoD’s culture. Nor are there currently many career incentives 

to develop this professional experience in the otherthan-DoD organizations. Accordingly, any package of 

reforms will have to balance the goals of increasing 

other-than-DoD agency capabilities and leader development opportunities with the practical realities of 

current limitations in personnel, expertise, and other 

resources in those agencies.

 From a political perspective, with bureaucratic 

politics and organizational cultures being what they 
341

are, any attempt to reduce or change the roles, responsibilities, and resources of any of the agencies 

and departments involved in nation-building and irregular warfare will be likely to result in bureaucratic 

pushback that will undermine the effort from the 

start. Therefore, to enhance the prospects for successful adoption and implementation, any solutions to the 

strategic and interagency problems must be additive 

to all organizations concerned. That is, successful organizational changes generally must be additive in 

the sense that the changes do not threaten the existing 

functions and organizational culture within the organizations affected. Political scientist James Q. Wilson 

found that these types of changes are the ones most 

likely to succeed, given bureaucratic and political realities.7

 It is likely that organizational cultures within 

these agencies and departments will change over 

time to conform more closely to the interagency expectations, much as the different branches of the U.S. 

military have come to embrace jointness in the years 

since the passage of Goldwater-Nichols in 1986. In any 

event, balancing the need to be additive with looming 

resource constraints will require a deft political touch 

as well as a serious and candid discussion that differentiates between wants and needs. 

In terms of other potential political obstacles to significant reforms, there may also be resistance to any 

proposals that are seen as enhancing the military’s 

resources or capabilities beyond the status quo, consistent with critics who have already expressed concerns about the militarization of U.S. foreign policy. In 

a book published in 2004 that was influential within 

Washington, DC, circles, journalist Dana Priest asserted a mismatch between the “culture and mission” 

of the demands of reconstruction and stabilization op-
342

erations and the U.S. military’s mindset.8 Highlighting the expansion of the military’s role in the conduct 

of foreign policy and the acceleration of that trend in 

the 1990s, Priest noted that the Clinton administration gave the military responsibilities for demining, 

drug interdiction, anti-terrorism, disaster relief, and 

other unconventional missions.9

 Priest went on to assert that the demands of the so-called Global War on 

Terror (GWOT) exceeded even the broad capabilities 

of the military and stretched the military thin while 

requiring skill sets that do not exist within the military at this point.10 Priest also claimed that the use of 

the military as the primary vehicle for the democratization that was at the center of the Bush-era national 

security strategy is a poor fit, given that the administration failed to link social welfare and economic 

development resources to the GWOT military effort.11

Along similar lines, any changes may require zerosum choices or even budgetary reductions in light 

of the U.S. Government’s current budget challenges, 

meaning that each increase in structure will likely 

need to come with an offsetting bill payer.

A VISION OF COHERENCE FOR U.S. NATIONAL 

SECURITY

As the 21st century unfolds, this period has already 

been marked by the emergence of a wide variety of 

diverse and unconventional security threats—threats 

that fall across the spectrum of conflict while calling for both military and nonmilitary responses. As 

such, the U.S. Government no longer has the luxury 

of allowing its component agencies and departments 

and their own competing organizational agendas, interests, and methods to get in the way of measured 
343

and effective national security responses. A major first 

step will involve undertaking the heavy work of reorganizing those organizations to achieve a true unity 

of effort through operational-level unity of command. 

However, any effective reforms of the national security apparatus must also include establishing national 

security structures and processes at all levels that enable policymakers to give unmistakably clear orders, 

with comparably clear objectives, authorities, and 

measures for gauging progress. These changes must 

also realign the career incentives and developmental 

opportunities for leaders, planners, and operators 

with the U.S. Government’s national security goals. 

Finally, these reforms must be undertaken in such 

a way as to build upon the strengths of the existing 

organizational cultures, rather than trying to impose 

changes in spite of them.

Although it may seem farfetched to compare the 

two activities, in western Pennsylvania there is a high 

school football team that wins championship after 

championship in spite of the fiercely competitive programs that surround it. What sets this program apart 

from all of the others is the fact that every player in the 

school district, regardless of age, uses the same formations, the same plays, and the same terminology, even 

as they learn the same drills and techniques from that 

same early age. So when a player has been learning 

the same drills and playbook since he was 5 years old, 

he does not even have to think about technique when 

it comes time to execute the plays in high school. Instead, his reactions are synchronized and instinctive, 

and he is free to focus all of his energy on achieving 

success on that play. Although the U.S. Government’s 

organizational structures for national security are far 

more complex and diverse than the Thomas Jefferson 
344

High School’s football program, the analogy is an apt 

one. In a similar way, the goal of these reforms is to get 

the various agencies and departments of the U.S. Government reacting in a synchronized and coherent way, 

thus enabling our government to succeed equally well 

in responding to the various threats and opportunities 

that our nation will encounter in the years ahead. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 9

1. Alexander Hamilton et al., in Charles R. Kesler and Clinton 

Rossiter, eds., The Federalist Papers, New York: Penguin, 1999, p. 

422. Some of the themes of this chapter first appeared in the author’s “Filling Irregular Warfare’s Interagency Gaps,” Parameters, 

Vol. 39, No. 3, Autumn 2009, pp. 65-80. The author is grateful to 

Parameters for the permission to reprint portions of those arguments in this book.

2. Ibid., pp. 421-429. 

3. Ibid.

4. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do 

and Why They Do It, New York: Basic Books, 1989, pp. 15-18.

5. Ibid., pp. 16-18.

6. Ibid., pp. 16-17, 25.

7. Ibid., pp. 225.

8. Dana Priest, The Mission: Waging War and Keeping Peace with 

America’s Military, New York: Norton and Company, 2004, p. 19. 

9. Ibid., p. 45.

10. Ibid., pp. 396-397.

11. Ibid., pp. 403-404.
345

CHAPTER 10

A WAY AHEAD—

THE NSC, COMBATANT COMMANDS,

AND USRADCOM

Why do U.S. Government agencies distribute assignments in ways that seem to minimize the chance for 

key employees to become expert in their tasks?

James Q. Wilson

Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies 

Do and Why They Do It, 19891

To succeed in future nation-building and irregular 

warfare operations, and in any other major national 

security undertakings for that matter, the United 

States must adopt reforms that encompass all of these 

essential elements if they are to be effective. Of course, 

formulating and implementing reform measures that 

incorporate all of these essential features will require 

major organizational changes, along with a concurrent redistribution of increasingly scarce resources. 

Nevertheless, any reform measures that encompass 

these essential elements offer the ultimate advantage 

of directly addressing the fundamental, underlying 

causes that have led to the U.S. Government’s strategic disjointedness and its disunity of effort in the first 

place. As daunting as some of these prospects might 

seem, there is a set of potential reforms that would accomplish each of these goals, while doing so in such a 

way as to mitigate the practical and political obstacles 

that usually attend bureaucratic changes of any real 

magnitude. 

In their essence, these recommended reforms consist of four major components. The first two compo-
346

nents call for major restructurings of critical organizations at the national and theater-strategic levels of 

activity—specifically the National Security Staff (NSS) 

of the National Security Council (NSC) and parts of 

the Department of Defense (DoD) combatant command structure. The second two components of this 

package of reforms involve a set of complementary 

changes that are aimed at our national security institutions and the U.S. Congress more generally, including a bottom-up review of our national security apparatus. Given their scope and reach, implementing 

these changes will require both executive orders and 

enabling legislation, and implementing them will also 

undoubtedly require heavy lifting from both political 

and bureaucratic perspectives. However, the shifting 

and dangerous nature of the 21st century security environment—when coupled with looming draconian 

budget cuts that will likely stretch laterally and vertically across the American government—will provide 

both an impetus and an opportunity for the consideration of changes beyond the normal pale. 

When viewed holistically, these proposed changes 

are more likely than any other recent or ongoing reform initiatives to resolve the U.S. Government’s considerable strategic and interagency difficulties. Likewise, these reforms would bring with them a direct 

and tangible means of bridging the gap between the 

increasingly complex demands of the modern national 

security environment and corresponding shortfalls in 

existing U.S. governmental systems and capabilities. 

At the same time, these measures would also take major steps toward achieving a more coherent process of 

strategy formulation, thus aiming to bring U.S. agency 

and departmental efforts into better alignment with 

the more robust strategic and operational objectives 
347

that would result from an increasingly rational, comprehensive, and integrated planning process.

Finally, when considered collectively and contemplated across a longer term, these prospective 

reforms would also create positive and persistent organizational pressures that would likely result in the 

modification of a variety of entrenched and adverse 

agency and departmental cultural norms over time. In 

turn, these resulting changes in organizational culture 

will yield professional and institutional incentives for 

interagency engagement and integration that would 

eventually help to bring agency and departmental 

processes and products into better alignment with 

one another. These reforms also offer the potential 

for realizing clean lines of authority, better focused 

capabilities, improved leader development, effective 

accountability mechanisms, and other attributes that 

are required to enable the U.S. Government to achieve 

genuine strategic and interagency coherence in the 

modern era. In sum, these changes will also enable 

the United States to take major steps toward achieving the agility, flexibility, and economy in our national 

security apparatus that is so vitally needed for the 21st 

century.

THE STRATEGIC LEVEL CENTERPIECE: 

REDESIGNING THE NSC’S NATIONAL 

SECURITY STAFF

At the strategic level of national security activity, 

any serious reform effort must address a host of deficiencies within the U.S. Government’s national-level 

strategic and interagency structures and systems, none 

of which are addressed directly by ongoing initiatives. 

Chief among these major concerns is the fact that the 
348

U.S. Government currently fails to make clear and rational linkages between its vital interests and the ends, 

ways, and means needed to advance those interests. 

Any truly serious reform effort should first enable the 

U.S. Government’s national strategic organizational 

structures to conduct genuine and effective strategy 

formulation, making this missing linkage of interests, ends, ways, and means—placed in the context of 

risks and costs—a systematic and routine feature of 

our national strategies. Of course, this result can only 

occur after the completion of a corresponding and 

thorough inventory of existing U.S. agency and departmental capabilities and resources as an essential 

first step. This inventory of capabilities and resources 

would then serve as the baseline for a rigorous set of 

national-level policy discussions and decisions aimed 

at yielding more capabilities-based and holistic policy 

recommendations and strategic guidance that incorporates presidential (and congressional) priorities into 

a comprehensive whole. Clearly, the current nationallevel structures and processes fall well short of this 

standard, since the center of gravity of the national 

security activity at the national level remains within 

the individual agencies and departments rather than 

with national strategic body or interagency process.

To achieve these primary goals, this package of 

modifications at the national level of planning structures and processes must also feature the changes required to overcome and resolve the disproportionate 

allocation of resources that favor one instrument of 

national power at the expense of the others. Likewise, 

any reforms would also need to improve interagency 

coordinating and integrating processes—processes 

that are currently largely “bottom up” rather than 

“top down” and generally engage leaders too late for 
349

key decisions, while also failing to mandate participation at the lower levels. Any reforms would therefore 

need to provide sufficient staff resources to meet current planning, operational oversight, and long-range 

strategic assessment and planning requirements, 

among other critical capabilities that are needed at the 

national level of national security activity. Associated 

reform measures should also include a plan to develop 

sufficient and enduring subject matter expertise at the 

national level, organized by region, function, transnational threat, or presidential priority, with strong interagency representation holding sufficient authority 

among other-than-DoD agencies and departments to 

overcome the disproportionate emphasis on security-centered operations that has dominated in recent 

years at the national level.

At the same time, these reforms must also be 

aimed at achieving the ability to generate detailed 

and comprehensive national security objectives, tied 

to existing resources and capabilities, to be used to 

drive corresponding theater-specific objectives. These 

robust national and theater-specific objectives would 

be expressed both through a more detailed and coherent national security strategy, as well as through an 

equally specific set of strategies for each theater, each 

major national security threat, and other significant or 

distinct national security concerns. Ultimately, these 

enhanced national-level executive systems and processes should be clearly and directly linked to matching congressional oversight structures. These linkages 

and the corresponding organizational realignments 

within the parent agencies and departments can be 

organized by geographic region, functional responsibility, or presidential priority, with each organizational structure tied to its associated national security 

objectives. 
350

Ideally, these modified national-level planning 

and oversight mechanisms would enable Congress 

and the President to define and monitor equally detailed measures of progress toward those objectives. 

These more robust and detailed measures of progress, 

or metrics, can then be used to enforce accountability 

and compel compliance among the various agencies 

and departments and their leaders. Likewise, these 

comprehensive metrics will also help those organizations to achieve a common understanding of the problem and to generate their own supporting objectives. 

These forcing functions and benchmarks would also 

subsequently serve as the organizational framework 

needed to shift the center of gravity in strategic deliberations at the national level from their current emphasis on turf and resource protection to discussions 

focused more on mission objectives and required capabilities.

The evidence from Afghanistan and in other systematic reviews of U.S. governmental performance 

clearly illustrates that our existing national security 

structures and processes are falling well short of accomplishing these desired outcomes. Placing the current bureaucratic arrangements into perspective, the 

organizational alignment of the NSC and its staff—at 

least nominally sitting at the center of the American 

national security effort—does not match either the 

functional and geographic alignment of the DoD combatant command structure or State Department (State) 

comparable organizational subdivisions, though it 

does reflect many current presidential priorities. In 

any event, a serious observer is hard pressed to see any 

logical connection or jurisdictional overlap between 

the various key players, let alone any commonality in 

form or function from one agency or department to the 
351

next. This interorganizational disjointedness stretches 

across the linkages between the NSC staff and the corresponding congressional structures and executive 

branch analogues, as well. For example, the Barack 

Obama administration’s NSC staff—now known as 

the National Security Staff (NSC/NSS)—has separate 

Afghanistan and Iraq deputies, along with partitions 

for Strategic Communications and Global Outreach, 

International Economics, Global Democracy Strategy, 

and Combating Terrorism Strategy, a structure that is 

clearly at odds with DoD and State subdivisions. 

Furthermore, this disjointedness is exacerbated by 

the fact that the Interagency Policy Committees (IPC), 

intended at least in part to bridge these gaps, do not 

exercise any real budgetary authority. Likewise, the 

White House’s Office of Management and Budget 

(OMB) is represented in the NSC itself but does not 

have a substantive role in the budgeting for capabilities or the distribution of resources, since agency and 

departmental budgets are ultimately controlled by the 

parent organizations and reviewed by Congress from 

department to department. Additionally, the current 

NSC/NSS and the various working groups are typically bottom-up models, where issues that cannot be 

resolved at the lower levels bubble up to a level at 

which they can be resolved. While this model manages workload for the senior officials, it also has the 

adverse consequence of engaging senior officials late 

in the decisionmaking process, and often interagency 

partners opt out at the lower levels without serious 

consequence.

The evidence of this national-level disjointedness 

is also apparent in the goals of the various agencies 

and departments, as well. That is, given the typically vague nature of the various strategic policies and 
352

documents created by the White House and the NSC/

NSS, agency and departmental goals can be, and are, 

interpreted variously among the different players in 

accordance with their own organizational cultures 

and the central tasks that they have already defined for 

themselves. For example, for a long time, DoD interpreted irregular warfare as a nearly conventional security operation—though this perspective has clearly 

changed—and State, the U.S. Agency for International 

Development (USAID), and other agencies interpreted 

these operations in ways consistent with their own existing organizational cultures. Political scientist James 

Q. Wilson talks to this central challenge of bureaucracy, noting that, “The State Department has goals, but 

they are so general that no executive can derive from 

them a clear definition of the department’s tasks.”2

For its own part, the NSC/NSS is already greatly 

overworked and understaffed for its scope of responsibilities, and as a result the leaders and staff of the 

NSS typically spend the majority of their time putting 

out fires rather than carrying out the fundamental advisory and integrating functions for which the council was constituted in the first place. Addressing this 

point directly, the 9/11 Commission concluded that 

the NSC and its staff were consumed by near-term 

requirements at the clear expense of longer-term and 

broader strategic planning. Specifically, the Commission noted that the NSC staff was “consumed by meetings on day-to-day issues (while) trying to coordinate 

everyday operations,” leaving the staff with “less 

capacity to find the time and detachment needed to 

advise a president on larger policy issues.”3

Largely determined by presidential preference, 

over its history the NSC staff has varied in size from 

administration to administration, but in nearly every 
353

case it has been small when compared with the scope 

of its responsibilities, a fact that holds particularly 

true today. Juxtaposed against the tens of thousands 

of planners and strategists assigned across the breadth 

of DoD, the personnel strength of the NSC staff has 

ranged from a low point of about a dozen personnel 

in the John Kennedy administration to about 100 staff 

members altogether in 2008.4

 It is modestly larger today. Of particular note, the Dwight Eisenhower model 

of the NSC staff contained a Planning Board of senior 

officials who thoroughly reviewed each issue before it 

came to the principal members, as well as an Operations Coordinating Board that monitored and reported on the implementation of the subsequent policy 

decisions.5

In any event, the centerpiece of any feasible reform 

package at the national level should include a major 

redesign of the NSC/NSS. The primary goal of this 

redesign would be to create a stronger NSS in terms of 

its ability to formulate plans and strategy, its resident 

institutional expertise, and its ability to generate specific accountability metrics and timelines, rather than 

any play-by-play oversight. That is, it is not the goal of 

these reforms to attempt to build the NSC or its staff 

into an organization with the mandate of managing 

the actual execution of national security operations—

a move that would further centralize the handling of 

irregular warfare operations and other complex national security challenges that do not lend themselves 

readily to deterministic or cookie-cutter solutions 

anyway. Instead, the goal is to reorganize the NSC/

NSS to match the requirements of the contemporary 

national security environment, partly in the style of 

the Eisenhower-era operations and plans cells, but 

with far more robust strategic planning, integrating, 
354

policy analysis, and advisory capabilities. As a strong 

and effective extension of the President’s vision and 

guidance for national security policy, the NSS could 

then provide the President with “one-stop shopping” 

for thorough strategic and interagency planning of 

recurring and emergent national security challenges, 

establishing the foundation for the balanced application of the various instruments of national power 

and framing objectives, resources, and accountability 

mechanisms for presidential decisions.

To achieve this vision, this reform recommendation suggests adopting an Eisenhower-style redesign 

of the NSS, but with a far more vigorous interagency 

flavor. This redesign will therefore involve realigning 

along regional, operations, and functional lines. Rather than creating ad hoc crisis action teams that typically operate in a vacuum, the goal is to create structures and substructures that enable the NSC/NSS to 

achieve a proportional sense of the whole of national 

security concerns. Ultimately then, the goal is to enable the NSS to achieve a more holistic understanding 

of the impacts of strategic and operational choices on 

U.S. national security interests and global risks and 

threats. As part of this NSS redesign, the executive 

branch leadership and the relevant agency leaders 

must also create more robust interagency coordinating 

mechanisms, beginning with the NSC/NSS itself and 

the Joint Interagency Coordinating Groups (JIACG) at 

the theater-strategic level, but eventually carrying this 

emphasis through to the operational level. 

As another essential feature of the NSC/NSS reforms, the resulting reorganized NSS interagency 

structures and processes must also enable the council to provide clear, task-driven, strategic-level statements of intent, responsibility, and authority for presi-
355

dential ratification. Most current strategic documents 

emphasize vague goals that sound more like rhetorical platitudes than guidance. As Wilson notes, “When 

agency goals are vague, it will be hard to convey to 

operators a simple and vivid understanding of what 

they are supposed to do.”6

 In essence, a primary related goal of the redesign is to create a streamlined 

but effective organization that is able to execute effective strategy formulation, with resulting policy products that include realistic, achievable ends linked to 

existing and adequate resources, in consideration of 

broader global threats and risks. Likewise, the NSC/

NSS must be resourced to enable it to provide staff 

support to the President for both long-range strategic 

planning, as well as near-term crisis action planning. 

The NSC/NSS as currently configured is consumed 

by crisis action planning at the clear expense of longer-term strategic planning. 

Collectively, then, the key features of the recommended NSC/NSS redesign will need to include expanding the council beyond its current level of about 

100 personnel to meet the revised requirements of its 

planning and oversight functions, without doing so in 

such a way as to create a sprawling bureaucracy that 

would only serve to counteract the positive effects of 

the increased capabilities. As another key element of 

this reform, the U.S. Government must also reorganize 

the components of the national security apparatus to 

bring the DoD geographic and functional combatant 

command structures, DoS’s separate subdivisions, 

and the structures of the other relevant agencies and 

departments into functional and geographic alignment. These reforms should also include equipping 

the NSC/NSS with a similar structure to the the DoD’s 

“J-Staff,” to enable the NSC to carry out all of those 
356

related functions and for commonality of operating 

practices with the U.S. Government’s executive arms, 

the combatant commands. Expanding and reorganizing the Eisenhower model to meet the current U.S. national security demands would require a redesigned 

NSC/NSS that can perform the following statutory

and emergent functions:

1. (Statutory functions under the National Security 

Act of 1947, as amended): 

• Advise the President with respect to the integration of policies related to national security;

• Enable the military services and other agencies/departments to cooperate more effectively;

• Assess and appraise objectives, commitments, and risks in relation to the use of military power, and make recommendations to 

the President in connection therewith;

• Consider policies on matters of common interest to the agencies and departments concerned with the national security, and make 

recommendations in connection therewith;

• Make recommendations, and such other reports to the President as it deems appropriate, or as the President may require;

• Conduct specific reviews and reports related 

to foreign intelligence activities, transnational threats, weapons of mass destruction, and 

other directed topics; and,

• Carry out other functions as the President 

may direct.7

Additionally, the evidence of history and the “best 

practices” of past Presidents suggest that the NSC and 
357

Presidents are best served when the NSS is also prepared to carry out the following emergent functions:

• Serve as the impartial “honest broker” for policies, strategies, and resources;

• Serve as the primary interagency analysts of intelligence and national security threats;

• Serve as the primary interagency coordinators, 

integrators, and orders preparers;

• Set the conditions for exercising of presidential 

authority;

• Propose and independently analyze strategic 

options, and offer recommendations when requested, rather than serving as a policy advocate;

• Conduct a thorough analysis of strategic options, rather than serving as the agent to build 

consensus among competing departments and 

agencies;

• Integrate proposed and approved strategic 

plans and policies;

• Conduct medium- and long-range strategic 

planning, separately from current operations 

or crisis and contingency planning;

• Facilitate “whole of government” responses to 

national security challenges, including homeland defense and the application of soft power;

• Conduct contingency planning and monitor 

current operations;

• Oversee and monitor accountability among the 

implementing departments and agencies, specifically to assess compliance with presidential 

orders; and,

• Serve as the primary national-level capabilities 

planner, as the interagency organization that 

best understands the capabilities and limits of 
358

the U.S. instruments of power, in the fashion 

of the National Security Resources Board that 

was part of the original National Security Act 

of 1947.

Of course, it is generally accepted that the NSC 

and NSS should stay out of the business of actually 

conducting or implementing operations.

With these statutory and emergent functions in 

mind, the NSC’s NSS should be reorganized to include these sections:

• An intelligence section to analyze global threats, 

interests, and risks;

• A separate section to cross-walk, integrate, and 

manage intelligence;

• Strategic plans and guidance sections corresponding to regions, functions, and presidential priorities;

• A current operations integration and oversight 

section;

• A future operations planning section;

• An information and knowledge management 

section;

• A strategic and interagency lessons learned activity;

• A top-down interagency coordination and integration section;

• A “President’s special action” section; and,

• A section that catalogues existing capabilities 

and forecasts requirements.

All in all, there are a number of major benefits to be 

gained from this redesign, chief among them the creation of robust national strategic planning capabilities 

and the corresponding establishment of binding and 
359

universally understood measures of success, including comprehensive and robust metrics for their measurement. This NSC/NSS redesign can also result in 

the creation of specific playbooks reaching across all 

agencies to provide common objectives and consolidated lists of appropriate and relevant metrics to help 

align agency and departmental effort. The redesign 

can also yield a scrub of actual agency and departmental capabilities, because the NSC could be staffed 

and equipped to inventory agency resources and their 

potential contributions to national security, with the 

ultimate goal of building on that inventory of existing 

skill sets and resources to make recommendations to 

Congress and the President regarding needed capabilities and potential resource redistributions. 

Along similar lines, this redesign could also give 

the NSC/NSS the ability to influence and realign the 

various agency and departmental career and professional incentives as a secondary effect of the coherent 

strategic guidance, likewise helping senior leaders to 

hold those agencies and departments accountable for 

the results of their efforts, even while continuing to allow for decentralized execution. This redesign would 

also equip the NSC/NSS with sufficient staff resources and expertise to enable it to rewrite the National 

Security Strategy and complementary documents to 

make the linkages of objectives, roles, responsibilities, 

resources, and authorities explicitly clear. The NSC/

NSS would also be better positioned to address the 

identification, definition, and mitigation of risks, thus 

achieving more balance in the use of scarce agency and 

departmental resources. From the start, this redesign 

would help to develop and reinforce an operator and 

planner mindset at the NSC/NSS, a mindset that will 

eventually carry through to the component agencies 

and departments of the U.S. Government. 
360

In summary, the primary benefits that will result 

at the national strategic level from this NSC/NSS redesign will come in the form of clear-headed policy 

advice and operationalized plans that link interests to 

ends and means, including the delineation of specific 

organizational responsibilities, required capabilities, 

and dedicated resources. This NSC/NSS redesign will 

also provide our national decisionmakers with the 

staff expertise and capabilities needed to inform strategic decisionmaking more effectively, thus enabling 

our senior leaders to make clear their unmistakable 

intent after having made decisions informed by the 

best possible sense of the strategic context. To succeed 

in the complex, uncertain, and dangerous national security environment of the 21st century, the national 

leadership must create and clearly articulate one vision for each national security requirement, a vision 

articulated using one common language that also 

clearly defines specific tasks to be accomplished and 

assigns equally specific responsibilities and authorities. To achieve this end, the NSC staff must be redesigned and properly resourced in order to make this 

rational, ordered, integrated, and coherent outcome 

not only possible, but routine.

THE THEATER AND OPERATIONAL LEVEL 

CENTERPIECES: USRADCOM AND 

COMBATANT COMMAND REDESIGN 

In addition to the national strategic level challenges, there are also a number of key concerns and 

challenges at the theater-strategic and operational 

levels of national security activity that also must be 

addressed by any serious reform effort. Among other 

major issues, obstacles to effective interagency inte-
361

gration and operational effectiveness at these levels 

include the fact that the key leaders at the theater and 

operational levels have no statutory leverage to direct 

other agency personnel and resources. This situation 

exacerbates the impact of the significant mismatch between the demands of modern national security operations and the U.S. Government’s current capabilities, as well as the skewed distribution of resources. 

Other major challenges at the theater-strategic and operational levels of activity include the adverse effects 

created by mismatches between modern missions and 

the predominant norms of the organizational cultures 

of key agency and departments, as well as misaligned 

career and professional incentives in many agencies 

that fail to provide any real incentive or mandate for 

the personnel within those agencies to seek developmental interagency assignments.

As a further hindrance to interagency and operational success, the typical bottom-up interagency 

processes—with participation not mandated and 

evaluations handled by the parent agency or department—appear at the theater and operational levels as 

well and serve to undermine the possibility for unified 

effort. These effects are then magnified by the lack of 

sustained, relevant, and enduring institutional subject 

matter expertise tied to regional, national, or transnational actors and cultures. Of course, the disproportionate allocation of resources to DoD also leads to an 

equally disproportionate focus on security operations, 

resulting in a lack of key and developmental assignment and educational and training opportunities for 

other than DoD personnel in general, and rising senior non-DoD leaders and senior staff in particular. 

Adding another challenge to the mix, the contractors 

hired to make up for these shortfalls are more often 
362

than not paid for process rather than results, just as 

the ultimate budgetary approval authority resides in 

Washington with parent organizations. Taken together, these factors combine to prevent key leaders on the 

ground from being able to set and enforce unmistakably clear priorities, objectives, operating practices, 

and metrics of accountability. 

With all of these challenges as a backdrop, the first 

major element of the recommended national security 

reforms at the theater-strategic and operational levels 

is the creation of a U.S. Reconstruction and Development Command (USRADCOM). Consistent with its 

name, USRADCOM would serve as a new joint, interagency command, with the strategic and operational 

responsibilities for reconstruction and development 

missions. Eventually led by a senior executive from 

USAID or State, the new combatant command would 

resemble the United States Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in several ways. For example, just 

as USSOCOM has the functional responsibility for 

developing, maintaining, and providing U.S. special 

operating forces, USRADCOM would have a similar responsibility for developing, maintaining, and 

providing interagency expertise on reconstruction 

and development operations. In particular, USRADCOM’s subject matter experts would include those 

trained and experienced in economic development, 

the building or rebuilding of the institutions for the 

rule of law, and the development of local and national 

governance, among other areas. In turn, the existing 

geographic combatant commands would retain the 

operational responsibility for carrying out routine 

short-term stability operations (and irregular warfare) 

as part of their execution of full spectrum operations. 
363

Additionally, just as USSOCOM has evolved into 

a combatant command that now carries out operational missions within the areas of responsibility of 

the geographic combatant commanders when ordered 

to do so, USRADCOM would similarly carry out reconstruction and development missions in conjunction with the geographic combatant commanders or 

independently, as directed. As a newly created functional, interagency combatant command, USRADCOM would be responsible for the integration and development of personnel from all of the key agencies, 

while enabling State, USAID, and the other agencies 

to build operational and planning expertise at strategic, theater-strategic, operational, and tactical levels. 

Ultimately to be headed by a four-star equivalent civilian leader from USAID or State, this interagency 

command would also provide a developmental track 

for aspiring planners and operators in USAID and 

State, as well as promotion opportunities and career 

incentives for the most talented leaders and staff from 

those and other agencies involved in reconstruction 

and development missions. As envisioned, movement 

back and forth from USRADCOM to mainstream State 

and USAID (or other agencies) will also cross-fertilize 

those organizations with elements of the operational 

and strategic-level planning cultures, while performing the same function for DoD and the other combatant commands, as well. In any event, it has become 

clear in Afghanistan and Iraq that the U.S. Government does not currently possess much-needed reconstruction and development expertise and capabilities. 

This shortfall would be filled by USRADCOM.

As the second centerpiece of the major reforms at 

the theater-strategic and operational levels, the establishment of this new combatant command would be 
364

coupled with an interagency-driven restructuring of 

the geographic and functional combatant commands 

of the DoD. The goal here would be to achieve true 

interagency integration by permanently staffing the 

combatant commands with personnel from the whole 

of the U.S. Government; with individual personnel 

rotating back and forth from their parent agencies. 

In some ways, this change would merely represent 

an expansion of a trend that is already underway, as 

the recent tendency has been toward equipping many 

of DoD’s combatant commands with interagency capabilities. For example, USAID personnel currently 

serve in five combatant commands, and the United 

States Africa Command (USAFRICOM) was designed 

from the start with a more robust interagency flavor 

in mind. Similar to the USAFRICOM in this respect, it 

will be appropriate to provide a deputy from the DoD 

in USRADCOM, and to integrate DoD personnel at all 

levels of that interagency command. As a distinct political and bureaucratic advantage, creating this interagency command would also basically maintain intact 

the existing organizational cultures and basic capabilities and structures of the key organizations, while 

also helping to “de-militarize” the face of American 

foreign policy in reconstruction and development operations. Likewise, this integration would enhance the 

interagency process, and giving nation-building and 

other development and similar development missions 

a better chance of succeeding. 

As an added benefit, this new structure would also 

involve creating a cadre of trained specialists in nation-building and development tasks, with particular 

emphasis upon the interagency components of those 

processes. At the same time, complementary measures 

should include placing deputies for economic devel-
365

opment from USAID and experts on governance and 

diplomacy from State in each of the other interagency commands as appropriate to their circumstances, 

similar to the mix that has already been put into place 

in USAFRICOM. As part of the development of the 

expertise required for these missions, USRADCOM 

might have a newly created combat advisory corps 

assigned to it as suggested by strategic thinker John 

Nagl. This organization would establish a body of 

dedicated professionals with the skills needed to develop the security forces of the host nation, but who 

would also have the training, expertise, temperament, 

and rank to advise the indigenous leaders at the national administrative level.8

Among many other benefits to be gained from 

this strategic restructuring, senior leaders from State, 

USAID, and other key agencies with a role in this 

area of national security would gain an opportunity 

to realize a culminating assignment as an interagency 

commander under this structure. Accordingly, the 

leadership and professional development opportunities represented in USRADCOM, as well as the interagency postings in the other combatant commands, 

would increase the incentives of non-DoD personnel 

to commit to the interagency track, in contrast to the 

current arrangements that often primarily incentivize home office assignments in their parent agencies. 

Upon integrating other agency personnel as appropriate throughout all of the combatant commands, and 

after providing the key leaders with the statutory authority needed to direct those other agency personnel, 

theater- and operational-level leaders will then be able 

to achieve a true integration of other agency perspectives, expertise, and resources, thus creating a true 

unity of vision and effort. 
366

Approaching this idea from the Founders’ perspective, Madison noted in The Federalist #51 that in 

order for the various departments of the government 

to function effectively, “Ambition must be made to 

counteract ambition,” in this context meaning that departments must be given similar outlets for talented 

individuals to pursue opportunities for leadership 

and development.9

 Consistent with this principle, the 

reform of the combatant command structure and the 

creation of USRADCOM will also provide rising senior leaders and managers from all of the key agencies opportunities to hold important responsibilities 

for planning, operations, management, and oversight. 

Corresponding changes would also need to afford 

these non-DoD personnel the opportunity for the developmental education and training needed to equip 

them to carry out those responsibilities. In the process, 

these shared interagency experiences, when coupled 

with appropriate formal institutional training and education, will enable the U.S. Government to develop a 

deep bench of career professionals in all agencies, reinforcing the trend by promoting and rewarding this 

interagency service and by providing the mechanisms 

for key operational and planning leaders to evaluate 

other-agency personnel formally. 

As a separate advantage of this reform, this option 

will also help the combatant commands to develop 

the much-needed cultural and language expertise that 

is lacking across the various arms of the U.S. Government. In particular, USRADCOM will serve to develop and then sustain the expertise in the areas of social, 

governmental, economic, and security development 

that is sorely needed in all of the relevant agencies 

and departments holding responsibilities for nationbuilding, irregular warfare, and even humanitarian 
367

relief. The idea of earmarking individuals to develop 

and specialize in these areas is entirely feasible, given 

the immense size of our executive branch. 

Another direct benefit of this major change would 

be to create on-the-job training opportunities for national security planners and operators from all relevant agencies, likewise establishing a foundation for 

the cross-fertilization of organizational cultures and 

expertise and enhanced interagency effectiveness at 

all levels of planning and execution. In the same way, 

this shift would bring other agency perspectives into 

the planning, resourcing, and operational processes 

in each command and ensure that each agency had 

the opportunity to have its viewpoints heard. As an 

added political benefit, the restructuring of the geographic and functional combatant commands, the fact 

that USRADCOM would be led by a senior executive 

from USAID or State should also shift the primary focus from security force-centered operations to citizencentered ones. This move would also be consistent 

with some of the basic governmental reform themes 

laid out by reform advocates David Osborne and Ted 

Gaebler in Reinventing Government in 1992.10

In standing up this new organization, for several 

reasons, it would be prudent to ensure that the first 

USRADCOM commander is a senior military leader, 

rather than a senior civilian. This senior military leader 

would be more capable of establishing the operating 

and planning culture that the new command’s organizational culture must embrace, and a senior military 

leader would understand how to establish the training 

and education programs needed to stand up the new 

capabilities required in the command. Ideally, this first 

USRADCOM commander would be someone coming 

from the military side of the civil-military equation, 
368

but having extensive experience with operating in interagency settings and in dealing with the nonmilitary 

instruments of power. Examples of such individuals 

might include: former Secretary of State, Colin Powell; 

former USCENTCOM commander, General Anthony 

Zinni; or perhaps a currently serving senior three- or 

four-star general officer having had substantial experience with reconstruction and development in the Afghan or Iraqi theaters of operations. In one sense, we 

would be looking for the modern day equivalent of an 

Eisenhower or George Marshall to initiate this new organization and its required nation-building capabilities, to pave the way and set conditions for success for 

the subsequent leader from State or USAID. Since the 

USRADCOM position would be a command position, 

this restructuring would also require accompanying 

legislation that would authorize a member of State or 

USAID to exercise command authority. 

To achieve each of these desired effects, there are 

a number of related and concurrent operational-level 

changes that would also be required. For one, commanders should be given streamlined access to funds 

that have a direct, significant, and visible impact on 

the lives of average citizens within the theater of operations. Nagl identifies the Commander’s Emergency 

Response Program (CERP) as one such vehicle.11 More 

typically, State and the other key non-DoD agencies 

have retained the ultimate approval for spending decisions, meaning that too often funding decisions are 

centralized thousands of miles away in Washington, 

DC—far from the operational theaters. Likewise, contractor specifications are sometimes generated at the 

theater-level and operational headquarters, and so 

employment contracts civilian contractors must be 

written to make them results-based rather than merely 
369

time-based, another move consistent with the governmental reforms suggested by Osborne and Gaebler.12

In a sense, taking these steps to decentralize operational decisionmaking and personnel control will 

take advantage of the benefits of our broader system 

of federalism, in which the key decisions that affect 

operations locally are made by the leaders closest to 

the situation. These changes would also build upon 

two operational and tactical level interagency success 

stories from the past—including the Marine Corps 

Combined Action Platoons and the Civil Operations 

and Revolutionary Development Support (CORDS) 

program—both of which achieved significant interagency success in Vietnam.13 Again, these changes are 

also consistent with the themes outlined in Osborne 

and Gaebler’s recommendations on streamlining and 

decentralizing decisionmaking.14

In any case, the implementation of these interagency coordinating mechanisms at the lower levels could 

be ad hoc in nature at the start, but ultimately the goal 

would be to impose statutory guidance mandating 

the organizations while simultaneously providing 

more leverage, resources, and authority to the interagency participants. Currently, the interagency working groups that do exist at the operational and tactical 

levels are often information-sharing organizations, 

rather than decisionmaking ones. Finally, to succeed 

in these complex operations, we will need to develop 

a nation-building playbook similar to the Army’s Field 

Manual (FM) 100-11: Force Integration, which provides 

a checklist of requirements and the systems and processes for building a viable, doctrine-based Army.15

The doctrinal guidance covers the means for creating 

doctrine, organization, training and education, materiel, leadership, personnel, and facilities, often known 

as DOTMLPF.
370

Finally, some thinkers and practitioners have suggested that it is time to scrap the DoD-centered combatant command structures altogether in favor of interagency commands. In an insightful article in Joint 

Force Quarterly, which laid out this argument in detail 

in 2009, Brigadier General Jeffrey Buchanan of the U.S. 

Army, Captain Maxie Davis of the U.S. Navy, and Colonel Lee Wright of the U.S. Air Force assert that this 

change would offer at least three benefits. In their view, 

these benefits would include an increase in unity of effort across agencies, improved professional development across all of the organizations, and a heightened 

willingness of some foreign partners to work with the 

U.S. Government.16 However, for a variety of practical reasons, the unified command plan and the DoD 

should remain the primary vehicles for the delivery of 

American national power. The DoD is the U.S. Government’s primary operational arm, equipped by culture, 

resources, and operational and planning capability to 

carry out operations across the full spectrum of activity. Unlike other agencies and departments, the DoD 

features the capability to operate in any security environment. Lastly, from a political perspective, it is hard 

to imagine a scenario in which lawmakers dismantle 

the combatant commands to hand broad authority to 

agencies or departments without that same capability, 

except in some limited cases, such as reconstruction 

and development, in which the required capabilities 

are not a natural fit with the DoD warfighting function. Instead, any reforms should augment and build 

upon the strengths of the existing unified command 

structures, while taking full advantage of DoD’s operational and planning culture and the department’s 

already robust capabilities.
371

COMPLEMENTARY REFORMS: BROADER 

INSTITUTIONAL MEASURES

From a broader institutional perspective, there are 

a number of associated and complementary measures 

that will be necessary to achieve the broader goals of 

this reform effort. From the start, any feasible and desirable interagency solution must give leaders in the 

field operational control over interagency personnel 

and the subject matter experts that each agency develops, during the period in which they are assigned to 

that command. At the same time, other complementary 

reforms will have to overcome the general inability of 

other-than-DoD agencies and departments to operate 

in non-permissive environments, as well as the lack 

of the formal education and training opportunities for 

key leaders in other-than-DoD organizations, and the 

lack of decentralized budget authority, or the authority to direct other agency personnel and resources. 

Likewise, these complementary reforms will be aimed 

directly at overcoming the lack of interagency promotion and career service incentives among many agencies and departments, along with the lack of statutory 

leverage of those agencies and departments to compel 

that service. 

From a broader institutional perspective, these 

complementary reforms will also need to change the 

mindset and practice of national-level interagency 

interactions that are focused on budget share and jurisdiction, as well as the disproportionate distribution 

of resources that limits the effectiveness of other than 

military instruments of national power, while overemphasizing the military instrument of power. As another facet of these challenges, changes at the broader 

institutional level must also shift contractor contracts 
372

that pay for process into more effective contracts that 

require results or specific outcomes. Agencies and 

departments must also revamp their centralized budgetary execution and approval processes, both to give 

more latitude to leaders in the field and to bring those 

processes more in line with the capabilities needed in 

the field. Along these same lines, the broader institutional reforms must feature the implementation of 

coherent, complete, and precise forcing functions, or 

measures of progress, for the enforcement of accountability.

Perhaps not surprisingly, given congressional control over budgeting, authorizing, and the appropriations processes, the primary vehicle for achieving any 

rebalancing of resources or the concurrent enforcement of accountability for results will need to focus 

on reforms of the congressional oversight structures 

and processes. In addition to reorganizing their own 

internal committee structures to make them more holistic and interagency-centered in form and function, 

these committees would also be more effective if the 

corresponding subcommittees mirrored the alignment of their executive branch equivalents by function, geography, and (possibly) presidential priority. 

Along similar lines, the national leadership must also 

identify and assign specific goals for improved interagency performance and then hold those agencies accountable for achieving these goals. 

Specifically, the first step in this process will be for 

the executive branch leadership—most importantly 

the President—to place major leader emphasis on the 

goal of achieving cooperative unity of effort, but it is 

clear from the results of previous presidential policy 

directives in that vein that command emphasis by 

itself will not be enough. Instead, a related comple-
373

mentary reform will have to give agencies operational 

control over other agency personnel if the U.S. Government is to realize true unity of vision and effort, 

just as each agency and department must be directed 

to develop the organic interagency, nation-building, 

and irregular warfare expertise needed to meet each 

organization’s responsibilities in these areas. 

At the same time, concurrent complementary reforms will need to involve the creation of professional 

career incentives and opportunities for interagency 

service, with demonstrated effectiveness in those assignments leading to promotion and advancement 

into senior positions of responsibility. Agencies and 

departments will have to undertake some reorganization and development within their staffs to provide 

adequate personnel depth to meet the requirements 

of these interagency operations and functions. Not 

the least of these developmental requirements will 

involve the creation of mechanisms for training and 

professionally educating key leaders and staff in interagency, nation-building, and irregular warfare responsibilities, along with mandating participation in 

that training. 

More broadly, complementary reforms will also 

need to include a statutory redirection of agency and 

department incentives from their internal processes, 

agendas, and goals to national security goals. Likewise, these reforms will also need to bring about the 

realignment of the geographic areas of responsibility 

and operational and functional subdivisions of all the 

agencies and departments of the U.S. Government, 

with national security responsibilities, to create a common operating picture and common functionality. 

Additionally, each agency and department will have 

to be directed toward the development and mainte-
374

nance of enduring professional expertise among the 

various agencies and departments corresponding to 

that geographic and functional realignment, including in-house subject matter expertise related to the 

key countries, regions, transnational actors, functions, 

and operations. 

Speaking of this need in particular, the USJFCOM 

commander—formerly the senior DoD leader for interagency study and development—notes, “The joint 

force will need patient, persistent, and culturally savvy people to build the local relationships and partnerships essential to executing irregular warfare.”17 The 

same is true for all agencies and departments with 

significant roles in these affairs. Accordingly, these 

complementary reforms must also include the redirection of sufficient resources to enable other-than-DoD 

agencies and departments to carry out their nationbuilding and irregular warfare functions. In the same 

way, the reforms must achieve a decentralization of 

budget execution, giving funding control to leaders 

at levels directly in contact with the problems being 

solved, subject to strict oversight and accountability 

and severe sanctions for any fraud, waste, or abuse.

Likewise, these complementary reforms must also 

include the development and adoption of administrative mechanisms that give other agency leaders in 

the field the leverage that comes from contributing 

directly and substantively to the performance evaluations of the other agency personnel assigned to their 

operational control. Another complementary reform 

should include the revision of job descriptions and 

employee contracts to give other-than-DoD agencies 

and departments the ability to assign certain key and 

essential employees to serve in overseas postings and 

in non-permissive security environments, when des-
375

ignated for such service, after adequate training and 

preparation. Other complementary reforms will need 

to include the adjustment of standard operating procedures within the interagency coordinating bodies 

at the various levels of national security activity and 

organizational guidelines to require agency and departmental participation, balancing the bottom-up activities of those groups with top-down direction from 

the key leaders.

Ultimately, any real transformation to create unified action will have to include “right-sizing,” or 

reapportioning resources to give overmatched agencies such as State the chance to participate effectively 

across the breadth of activities relevant to our aggressive foreign policy objectives. Strategic thinker Joseph 

Cerami also suggests the need for systematic training 

and an education program for interagency professionals, along with a requirement for formal interagency knowledge management processes—including data bases, online courses, simulation networks, 

pre-deployment training and certification, leader 

development, subject matter networks, and an interactive center for interagency lessons learned.18 Other 

careful observers of American government have also 

suggested a wholesale need to restructure contractor contracts to make them outcome-driven rather 

than input-driven.19 To facilitate the sharing of interagency and irregular warfare lessons learned across 

agencies, it will be wise to create a national security 

clearinghouse for interagency lessons learned similar 

to the Center for Army Lessons Learned (CALL) in 

the Army. The S/CRS is the lead for creating such a 

knowledge center, but it is probably more appropriate 

to include this function in the NSC redesign, to avoid 

any potential agency parochialism. 
376

While some of these types of professional developmental initiatives are already underway in some cases, 

almost all of them are wholly voluntary in nature and 

very limited in scope. We clearly need to take more of 

a hands-on approach if we are to solve problems. In 

fact, this reform effort will require creating significant 

career incentives, ranging from promotions to awards 

to financial incentives and professional educational 

opportunities, for the deployable personnel from the 

DoD and the other key agencies who become the cadre of specialists in nation-building, irregular warfare, 

interagency planning and operations, and humanitarian assistance and development. Of course, achieving 

this organizational change will not be an easy task. 

In fact, Wilson observes that U.S. agencies typically 

move in the opposite direction in their personnel practices. Due to promotion considerations, a desire for 

balanced experience throughout the force, and a perceived need to distribute opportunities fairly, Wilson 

notes, “U.S. agencies distribute assignments in ways 

that seem to minimize the chance for key employees 

to become expert in their tasks.”20 However, if the U.S. 

Government is to become more effective and efficient 

in these increasingly common tasks, we must do the 

heavy lifting required to make those changes happen. 

IMPLEMENTATION: ENABLING LEGISLATION, 

EXECUTIVE ORDERS, AND A BOTTOM-UP 

REVIEW

In a very broad sense, there are essentially three 

strategic approaches that the United States could take 

in seeking to improve its strategic and interagency 

performance in national security affairs. The first of 

these, and the one that is most likely to occur from 
377

a political perspective, given entrenched bureaucratic 

and political interests, basically represents making 

largely cosmetic changes to the status quo. These approaches emphasize enlightened leadership, periodic 

and typically modest presidential reorganizational 

initiatives—usually without any serious redirection 

of resources—and equally modest increases in capacity, such as the creation of superimposed bureaucratic 

structures to continue to muddle through the application of the instruments of national power. 

Another approach would entail more radical 

changes—changes that would reach aggressively into 

the existing agencies and departments to redirect resources, change mandates, and start from scratch. As 

likely to occur as the first status quo option is, this radical change option is just as unlikely to occur. Though 

seemingly radical in some respects, the package of reforms recommended here actually represents a more 

incremental, though still substantial, approach. This is 

an approach that would not be easy to enact, but does 

preserve most of the existing organizational resources 

of the component agencies and departments. This approach, which represents significant yet largely additive changes while emphasizing cross-fertilization 

and building organizational incentive and capability, 

provides the possibility of real and substantive change 

while mitigating some of the likely sources of political 

and bureaucratic opposition, as well as some of the 

practical obstacles to feasibility. 

From a historical perspective, changes of this magnitude are somewhat rare, but not without precedent. 

Just as Goldwater-Nichols redefined the relationships 

among the services without altering the basic organizational structures of the component branches of 

the military, this reorganization will have to confront 
378

some outright opposition but stands a similar chance 

of adoption and successful implementation. The original reconfiguration of the American national security 

apparatus in the National Defense Act of 1947 faced 

its own challenges, and, of course, it will not be easy to 

make these changes happen either. In any event, this 

package of major reforms will have to be realized both 

through enabling legislation and presidential executive orders. 

At the beginning of the Cold War in April of 1950, 

the United States published a 58-page document titled 

NSC 68: U.S. Objectives and Programs for National Security, outlining the specific objectives, organization, 

and resources directed toward meeting the security 

requirements of that time.21 In addition to a new NSC68, legislation will be required to equip the agencies 

with the personnel and funds to achieve the new strategic and interagency requirements while also compelling the other changes in those agencies that are 

needed to accomplish the other goals of the reforms. 

Ideally, these major changes will be implemented concurrently in order to achieve all of the intended effects, 

but this outcome may be too difficult to achieve. 

As one model from an interagency perspective, 

the domestically-oriented Stafford Act directs federal 

Cabinet-level departments to “plan, prepare, and execute implementing operations,” and there is currently 

no comparable act or directive that compels similar 

cooperation in foreign operations.22 Clearly, however, 

any feasible way forward must fall within the bounds 

of practical and political constraints, obstacles, and 

limits. With all of the practical and political obstacles 

to successful implementation of this proposal in mind, 

creating USRADCOM—led by State or USAID—

would actually help to overcome many of these bu-
379

reaucratic and political impediments, as well as some 

of the practical questions of feasibility. Along similar 

lines, these reforms will likely be more palatable to 

other-than-DoD agencies and departments if the developing interagency talent is homegrown rather than 

imported. In other words, rather than bringing in a 

Colin Powell to lead State, these reforms will face less 

internal opposition if, instead, talented career diplomats with nation-building and humanitarian development and relief operations experience are selected for 

these key leader positions. 

As a practical matter, a tricky part of the implementation of these proposals will involve the need to 

make them additive to the agencies and departments, 

while also confronting the reality of the Federal Government’s massive budget deficit and the need to 

economize across the board. This challenge is certainly 

a significant one, but for any reform to have a realistic 

chance of achieving the coherence and integration that 

is needed with the U.S. Government, we will have to 

find a way to satisfy both requirements. Put another 

way, the national security budget is likely to be a zerosum game, or worse, given the massive budget deficit 

and mounting U.S. debt. But from another perspective, this reality gives us even more reason to push to 

become more efficient. Secretary Robert Gates’s recent 

decision to dismantle USJFCOM is an example of this 

need.

Accordingly, with all these considerations in 

mind, it will be necessary to conduct a bottom-up review of all of the agencies and departments involved 

in national security, with three related goals in mind. 

First, to achieve coherence in the process of generating 

strategy, it is necessary to understand exactly what 

capabilities and resources the various agencies of the 
380

U.S. Government bring to the table. Second, to stand 

up any new structures or capabilities, it will likely be 

necessary to identify bill payers within the national 

security agencies to be able to afford the USRADCOM, the reconstruction and development experts, 

and the full-time interagency staff, who will be assigned to the combatant commands. Finally, if the U.S. 

Government is truly committed to achieving strategic 

coherence and unified effort among its component 

agencies and departments, this bottom-up review will 

serve another important purpose. As a result of this 

review, the roles and functions of each activity (and 

its assigned personnel) should be defined clearly as 

operators, planners, capabilities-providers, enablers, 

or sustainers—all corresponding directly to the specific capabilities required by the U.S. Government to 

exercise its instruments of national power. The question to be asked of the agencies and departments and 

their personnel is this: “How, exactly, do you contribute to U.S. national security?” Armed with the results, 

national-level decisionmakers can then craft feasible 

and coherent national strategies, while simultaneously making the hard choices needed to allocate our 

national resources in an efficient and sustainable way. 

As Admiral Mullen has noted, the status quo is not 

viable. 

ACHIEVING STRATEGIC COHERENCE, 

BALANCE, AND UNITY OF EFFORT

Over the last several decades, the U.S. Government 

has strengthened its military instrument of national 

power at the clear expense of the other instruments 

of national power—diplomacy, information, and economic means. The major reform initiatives suggested 
381

in this book would reverse that trend, not in some arbitrary fashion but rather by providing systems and 

processes that will focus attention directly on creating the capabilities required to meet the emerging security threats of the 21st century. It is hard to argue 

against the fact that the U.S. military will remain the 

right vehicle for delivering American hard power 

in the non-permissive environments in which most 

nation-building and all irregular warfare operations 

occur, but equipping the military to achieve success in 

that mission cannot come at the expense of other soft 

power applications. Moreover, the package of reforms 

and the governmental reorganization suggested in this 

monograph would go a long way toward achieving 

a more balanced, coherent, and rational U.S. national 

security effort, enabling the American government to 

work more effectively and efficiently. 

Without any doubt, this package of reforms will 

need to overcome a variety of political and practical 

obstacles to its implementation. At the same time, restructuring the geographic and functional combatant 

commands—coupled with the creation of a new functional interagency command with operational responsibility for reconstruction and development, led by a 

senior executive from USAID or State—will help to 

overcome some of the practical and political obstacles. 

However, we must find a way to get these reforms 

done. History and recent experience confirm that regardless of any claims or theories to the contrary, the 

only feasible path to a true interagency unity of effort 

is actual unity of command. Put even more directly, 

there is no feasible or effective substitute to executive 

authority than a unitary executive, expressing a clear 

statement of the commander’s intent and holding the 

leverage of command authority to implement it. If our 
382

nation is to meet the dangerous and emerging threats 

of the 21st century, we must undertake the heavy lifting needed to reform our national security institutions 

to reflect this immutable and fundamental truth.

Finally, from the perspective of effective strategy 

formulation and interagency integration, the bottom 

line here is that incremental approaches similar to 

those taken since September 11, 2001 (9/11) will not 

succeed, because superimposed bureaucratic structures with all of the responsibility and none of the 

authority are likely to fail. Our nation ignores the basic and immutable principles of executive leadership 

outlined by Alexander Hamilton and others at its peril—principles that clearly apply in the nation-building 

and irregular warfare missions that will be increasingly prominent in the years to come. Complex schemes 

may sound attractive in theory, but they will not succeed in practice. Instead, effective interagency coordination and execution requires clear lines of authority, 

coherent systems, appropriate capabilities, and a common understanding of the tasks and objectives across 

the spectrum of agencies and departments. 

ENDNOTES - CHAPTER 10

1. James Q. Wilson, Bureaucracy: What Government Agencies Do 

and Why They Do It, New York: Basic Books, 1989, p. 171.

2. Ibid., pp. 31-49.

3. The 9-11 Commission, The 9-11 Commission Report, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, January 26, 2004, p. 

402, available from www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf.

4. Project on National Security Reform, Preliminary Findings, 

Washington, DC: Center for the Study of the Presidency, July 

2008, p. 52.
383

5. Catherine Dale, Nina Serafino, and Pat Towell, “Organizing the U.S. Government for National Security: Overview of the 

Interagency Reform Debates,” CRS Report for Congress, RL34455, 

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, April 18, 2008, 

pp. 10-11.

6. Wilson, p. 95.

7. Cody M. Brown, The National Security Council: A Legal History of the President’s Most Powerful Advisers, Washington, DC: The 

Project on National Security Reform, 2008, pp. 111-116.

8. John A. Nagl, Institutionalizing Adaptation: It’s Time for a Permanent Army Advisory Corps, Washington, DC: Center for a New 

American Security, 2007.

9. James Madison et al., in Charles R. Kesler and Clinton Rossiter, eds., The Federalist Papers, New York: Penguin, 1999, p. 319.

10. David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, Reinventing Government, 

New York: Penguin, 1993, Chap. 6. 

11. John A. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, Chicago, IL: University 

of Chicago Press, 2005 Ed., p. xiii.

12. Osborne and Gaebler, Chap. 5.

13. Nagl, Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife, pp. 138-165.

14. Osborne and Gaebler, Chap 9.

15. See Field Manual (FM) 100-11, Force Integration, Washington, DC: Department of the Army, January 1998. 

16. Jeffrey Buchanan, Maxie Davis, and Lee Wright, “Death 

of the Combatant Command? Toward a Joint Interagency Approach,” Joint Force Quarterly, No. 52, 1st Quarter 2009, p. 96.

17. Irregular Warfare (IW) Joint Operating Concept, Version 1.0, 

Washington, DC: Department of Defense, September 11, 2007, 

p. 1.
384

18. Joseph R. Cerami, “What is to Be Done? Aligning and 

Integrating the Interagency Process in Support and Stability Operations,” Chap. 17 in Joseph R. Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, eds., 

The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, 

Transition, and Reconstruction Roles, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies 

Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2007, pp. 562-564, 

available from www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.

19. Osborne and Gaebler, Chap. 5.

20. Wilson, p. 171.

21. Zeb B. Bradford, Jr., and Frederic J. Brown, America’s 

Army: A Model for Interagency Effectiveness, Westport, CT: Praeger, 

2008, p. 205.

22. Scott R. Feil, “The Failure of Incrementalism: Interagency 

Coordination Challenges and Responses,” Chap. 9 in Joseph R. 

Cerami and Jay W. Boggs, eds., The Interagency and Counterinsurgency Warfare: Stability, Security, Transition, and Reconstruction 

Roles, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, December 2007, p. 294, available from www.StrategicStudiesInstitute.army.mil.
385

A BRIEF EPILOGUE:

CONTEMPLATING THE CONTEXT

AND FUTURE OF “NATION-BUILDING”

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans 

are useless, but planning is indispensable.

President Dwight Eisenhower1

Regardless of the eventual outcome of the mission 

in Afghanistan, there is no question that the United 

States must reflect carefully upon the lessons to be 

learned from our strategic and interagency struggles 

to build an Afghan nation. But while some readers 

might interpret this book as a warning against engaging in these operations under any circumstances, that 

is not the intent. Instead, the first point here is that 

our foreign policy decisionmakers must think longer 

and harder before committing to any future nationbuilding or irregular warfare operations, given their 

exhaustive scope, length, and expense. Likewise, policymakers cannot fail to address legitimate, first-order 

questions about the basic feasibility of nation-building 

operations in each unique set of circumstances, since 

the outcomes of these tough missions are by definition 

uncertain, even in the best of cases.

But even if the United States never takes on another 

nation-building mission—and that prospect is highly 

unlikely, given America’s history—it is still imperative that we take the major steps needed to synchronize the effort and capabilities of the various organizations that comprise our national security system. 

Put another way, it is hard enough to operate in the 

international or coalitional settings that are increasingly common features of our foreign interventions, 
386

before adding any internal strategic and interagency 

impediments. So we must get our own house in order 

in any case, but this need becomes even more pressing 

if the United States intends to continue to try to “fix 

failed states.”

If we accept history as our guide, it is more likely 

than not that we will again intervene in other countries’ social, political, military, and economic affairs 

in the future, as foreign interventions on a larger or 

smaller scale have been a fairly routine feature of past 

American foreign policy. In fact, to put this type of 

mission into context, past large-scale irregular warfare or nation-building operations in the post-World 

War II era alone have included Germany, Japan, Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, and Iraq.2

 Other 

missions of these types on a smaller scale have included relative successes in Panama and Grenada, as 

well as failures in Cambodia and Vietnam. Still other 

failed operations of this kind during the 20th century 

include: the Dominican Republic (twice), Cuba (three 

times before World War II), Nicaragua, Haiti (twice), 

and another pre-World War II operation in Panama.3

In light of emerging global trends, analysts from the 

Institute for National Strategic Studies predict that it 

is likely we will undertake other similar nation-building and irregular warfare missions fairly commonly in 

the future.4

 But as significant as these endeavors are, 

we still have not yet created workable processes for 

strategy formulation and interagency integration that 

will routinely lead us to success. 

At the same time, we must not forget that irregular 

warfare and nation-building are only part of the story. 

From a broader perspective, our nation must also be 

prepared for national security operations across the 

full spectrum of conflict. The world is rapidly becom-
387

ing a more dangerous and unpredictable place, and 

one in which the international system and its nationstate actors only constitute part of the relevant national security framework. Among other complicating 

factors, dangerous global trends include:

• A widening disparity of resources between the 

global rich and poor;

• Fluid and contested territorial boundaries and 

poorly secured or unsecured borders;

• The rising importance and threats associated 

with transnational terrorists, radical fundamentalist groups, and increasingly sophisticated criminal elements;

• Major demographic and environmental challenges, especially within the developing world;

• Increasing worldwide demand for food and 

fresh water;

• The likelihood of increasing proliferation of 

weapons of mass destruction;

• Pandemics and other public health crises;

• Our own growing reliance and dependence on 

cybertechnology;

• Unsustainable fiscal policies and mounting national and international debts; and,

• The declining resilience and reach of the institutions of the rule of law within many failing or 

failed states.5

All in all, these developments are not only cause 

for concern, but they also call into question the basic 

premise that the United States should engage in nation-building in the first place, given the diverse and 

transnational nature of modern security threats. Put 

another way, in this age of growing and more dangerous transnational threats that are just as or more 
388

dangerous that those posed by nation-states, it is not 

clear that the return on that strategic option is worth 

the cost or risk. We do not want to succeed in nationbuilding somewhere, only to fail from a broader strategic perspective somewhere else. 

Likewise, we cannot forget the significant opportunity costs and strategic risks that come with using 

military power, among them considerations of economic strength, international goodwill, and political 

capital. Given that the ultimate outcomes in nationbuilding are uncertain—as evidenced by Afghan 

President Karzai’s willingness to deal with Iran when 

unhappy with U.S. actions—we must define realistic and attainable objectives entailing calculated and 

acceptable risks. To succeed in any future nationbuilding and irregular warfare operations, we must 

choose carefully, understand the problem, commit 

the appropriate resources, and convince the American 

people and our allies of the necessity and desirability 

of the nation-building option. Policymakers must set 

national security objectives that match the realities of 

the situation, after careful analysis of the problem. The 

United States cannot do everything everywhere, so 

we must tailor our national security objectives to the 

“necessary” and “feasible,” rather than the “desired” 

and the “optimal.” In this sense, we need to get back 

into the habit of doing means- and risk-constrained 

strategy, rather than making ideologically driven or 

hastily considered policy choices that entail long-term 

commitments and exorbitant costs.

Similarly, although the United States has a clear 

interest in promoting democracy and our other core 

values, we must revisit the “liberal democratic peace 

theory” that currently underpins our foreign policy 

and our national security strategy. It has become clear 
389

that we cannot afford to achieve these outcomes solely 

by force of arms, just as we have found ourselves both 

unprepared to absorb the high costs of these lengthy 

missions and lacking in the right balance of resources 

and capabilities needed to succeed in them. In one 

sense, we need to work smarter and more selectively 

rather than harder, and it is important that we enter 

into these missions only after taking a more realistic 

long-haul approach, rather than assuming away problems or accepting challenges that are nearly intractable 

in some cases. We must be both smarter and more efficient, or we risk achieving success in building other 

nations, only to undermine the health of our own.

At the same time, while our nation has run into 

major challenges in its attempt to use the military instrument of national power to impose a democratic 

solution to regime problems in Iraq and Afghanistan, 

there are still a number of evident advantages to democracy promotion that argue for its inclusion as a 

central and durable component of U.S. policy. Liberal 

international relations theories hold that democratic 

regimes are inherently more stable and peaceful than 

authoritarian systems.6 As an extension of this line 

of thinking, democratic peace theorists assert that 

democracies may go to war as often as other nationstates, but that they are far less likely to fight one another.7

 A corollary to this school of thought focuses on 

economic interdependence. Other scholars challenge 

the theory’s validity on the basis of limited long-term 

evidence and a potential influence of post-World 

War II neorealists and anti-Soviet free-state coalition 

building among democratic countries.8

 However, this 

theory promises attractive advantages for democracy 

promotion as policy, if the theory, in fact, survives 

empirical scrutiny intact. 
390

Similarly, democracy promotion holds the potential to help create viable middle classes within the 

successfully reforming countries, thus making the 

odds of political moderation and peace more likely, 

in accordance with democratic peace and economic 

interdependence theory. Democracy promotion could 

also help to achieve basic civil rights for religious and 

ethnic minorities, women, and other disenfranchised 

or persecuted segments of Middle Eastern and Central Asian societies, an outcome that clearly would be 

consistent with stated U.S. foreign policy objectives 

and U.S. national interests. This strategy could also 

foster democratic debate and deliberation within governments in the region, thus affording these countries 

better opportunities to achieve representative and 

public interest-minded policy choices.

Conversely, however, there are also potential disadvantages associated with democracy promotion as a 

central component of U.S. policy. Since Islamists tend 

toward nonsecular, religion-centered governance, the 

resulting Islamic democracies may resemble Iran’s de 

facto theocracy. These quasi-democracies place the 

real power of government into the hands of Islamic 

religious leaders, often those least likely to seek constructive ways to work out differences with the United States. The demographic challenges of the average 

Middle Eastern or Central Asian country and their Islamic cultural norms also might make them especially 

susceptible to Tocqueville’s “tyranny of the majority,” 

or the routine abuse of minority interests and human 

rights at the hands of the dominant majority. 

Such a tyranny sets the conditions for continuing civil unrest and unstable regimes. Or, as strategic 

thinker Larry Goodson points out, “Real elections in 

the region produce Islamist governments.”9

 Accord-
391

ingly, we must “be careful what we wish for,” as currently secular or stable authoritarian governments can 

become extremist through democratic reforms that 

result in radical Islamic control and anti-American 

demagoguery. Furthermore, heavy-handedness on 

our part could open the door for energy competitors, 

such as China, the European Union, Japan, and India 

to strengthen their relations with the countries of the 

region at our expense. So democracy might be currently incompatible with the existing authoritarian social 

and political cultures of the Middle East and Central 

Asia, especially given the prevalent norms of patriarchy and the ideology of Islam.10 Along these lines, Iran 

provides another clear example of the limits of democracy promotion as a panacea for the protection of U.S. 

interests in the region. 

Expanding on this theme, Iran’s government is 

nominally democratic, but it is really a quasi-democratic theocracy, with the real power in the country in 

the hands of religious leaders unfriendly to the West. 

Iran’s popularly elected President and Parliament are 

ultimately checked in their ability to govern by the 

controlling Shiite clergy.11 Furthermore, the public 

face of the Iranian democracy is President Ahmadinejad, who came to power on the basis of his hard-line 

conservative views.12 Ahmadinejad is well known 

for his inflammatory, anti-American rhetoric, which 

has served him effectively as a domestic political tool 

to rally Iranian public opinion around his hard-line 

policies. Iran is another largely homogenous society, 

dominated by its nearly 90 percent Shiite faction. 

Described as pluralistic rather than democratic, Iran 

represents a logical form of democracy for an Islamic 

country, with modest democratic institutions dominated by the Islamic religious leadership.13 Iran also 
392

demonstrates the potential longer-term dangers of 

supporting even moderate authoritarian regimes, as 

the United States suffered a backlash in the aftermath 

of the Iranian revolution of 1979 when the U.S.-backed 

Shah was removed from power. Applying a longerterm perspective, however, the democratic governing 

mechanisms in Iran, though impotent, may offer an 

opportunity for engagement and leverage in bringing 

about a favorable relationship in the future. The recent 

U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) 

assistance to the Libyan rebels provides another potentially successful model.

Viewed in the aggregate then, democracy promotion may in fact represent a viable longer-term strategic objective, but in some cases it may not be either 

wholly feasible or completely consistent with U.S. interests in the short- and medium-terms. For example, 

analyst James Russell has identified a wide variety of 

potential economic, environmental, and geopolitical 

risks associated with hard power regime change strategies, among them oil shocks, major budget deficits, 

fresh water problems, and international terrorism.14

Given the inherent complexity of nation-building, 

as well as the wide variation in regimes, interests, 

demographics, and existing political cultures, the 

United States should use its full range of instruments 

of national power to protect its interests, but take a 

long-range and less-aggressive approach to democracy promotion. We can apply informational, diplomatic, and economic pressures gently but firmly—and 

consistently and in a measured way—to achieve this 

long-term strategic objective, doing so in ways that 

will not adversely affect other aspects of those strategic relationships.

In closing, we must embrace and acknowledge 
393

the lessons of history and the realities of human nature and human organizations, if we are to succeed in 

these incredibly complex, challenging, and vitally important missions. There will likely come another time 

when U.S. policymakers, having carefully weighed 

the interests, risks, opportunities, options, and costs 

of the situation, decide that nation-building—whether 

limited or comprehensive in scope, and whether by 

force of arms or not—is consistent with U.S. national 

security interests. When that time comes, we must be 

prepared to carry out these missions more efficiently 

and more effectively than we have to date, in order 

to achieve a higher probability of success. We simply 

cannot afford to maintain the U.S. Government’s disjointed and disunified status quo.

ENDNOTES - EPILOGUE

1. Quoted in Richard M. Nixon, Six Crises, New York: Doubleday Publishing, 1962. 

2. Hans Binnendijk and Stuart E. Johnson, eds., Transforming 

for Stabilization and Reconstruction Operations, Washington, DC: 

National Defense University Press, 2004, pp. 4-5.

3. Ibid., p. 117.

4. Stephen J. Flanagan and James A. Schear, eds., Strategic 

Challenges: America’s Global Security Agenda, Washington, DC: 

Institute for National Security Studies (INSS), National Defense 

University Press, 2008, p. 142.

5. For analysis of these trends, see The Joint Operating Environment (JOE) 2008, Norfolk, VA: U.S. Joint Forces Command, November 25, 2008.
394

6. Stephen M. Walt, “International Relations: One World, 

Many Theories,” Foreign Policy, Vol. 110, Spring 1998, p. 32.

7. Ibid., p. 39.

8. Ibid.

9. Larry P. Goodson, “Things Change and Things Stay the 

Same,” Text of a U.S. Army War College Presentation, Carlisle, 

PA: U.S. Army War College, 2006, pp. 1-7.

10. Graham E. Fuller, “Islamists in the Arab World: The Dance 

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ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

ANA/ANP Afghan National Army/ Afghan 

National Police

ANSF Afghan National Security Forces

CIA U.S. Central Intelligence Agency

COCOM Combatant Command

DEA U.S. Drug Enforcement 

 Administration

DoD U.S. Department of Defense

DoJ U.S. Department of Justice

IMS Interagency Management System

ISI Pakistan’s Inter-Services 

Intelligence Directorate

ISAF International Security and 

Assistance Force, Afghanistan

JIACG Joint Interagency Coordinating 

Group

MOD Afghan Ministry of Defense

MOI Afghan Ministry of the Interior

NATO North Atlantic Treaty 

Organization

NSC/ NSS National Security Council/ 

National Security Staff

NSPD/ PPD National Security Presidential 

Directive/ Presidential Policy 

Directive

NSS National Security Strategy

PRT Provincial Reconstruction Teams

State U.S. Department of State

USAID U.S. Agency for International 

Development

USDA U.S. Department of Agriculture
U.S. ARMY WAR COLLEGE

Major General Gregg F. Martin

Commandant

*****

STRATEGIC STUDIES INSTITUTE

Director

Professor Douglas C. Lovelace, Jr.

Director of Research

Dr. Antulio J. Echevarria II

Author

Lewis G. Irwin

Director of Publications

Dr. James G. Pierce

Publications Assistant

Ms. Rita A. Rummel

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Mrs. Jennifer E. Nevil
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