Evaluating U.S. Foreign Assistance to Afghanistan-- A Two Part Complaint

So, I've read the report prepared by the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee on assistance in Afghanistan and it's completely bizarre, as I feared. Here's how it starts:

"...we believe the administration can be more effective in how it spends aid in Afghanistan. U.S. assistance should meet three basic conditions before money is spent: our projects should be necessary, achievable, and sustainable." (page 2).

I wonder who wrote those two sentences? They are classic. Let's pause for one moment and examine the thesis of this incredible piece of work.

First, it says the administration can be more effective in how it spends aid. What does that mean, exactly? That the money should get more 'bang' for each 'buck'? For example, for every dollar spent, Afghans should get 60 cents in actual assistance -- like meals, water, roads and so forth? Because one OXFAM report claims that something like 40% of foreign assistance is returned to the country of initiation in salaries and payments to project managers and monitors from that country. OR, does that sentence mean that for every dollar spent we should see a resulting decrease in violence in any given area? Or, does that mean that for every dollar spent, the Afghan markets grow by some proportional amount? Or, perhaps it means that for every dollar spent, we should be able to get out of there faster? Or maybe that we have quicker mechanisms for spending the money? Congress appropriates it one day, and it's spent within a week or two? or...? No clear acknowledgement or recognition that money is being spent in Afghanistan in an incredibly complicated context strikes me as irresponsible.

Next, it says that "U.S. assistance should meet three basic conditions before money is spent: our projects should be necessary, achievable, and sustainable." Should US assistance be necessary, achievable and sustainable? Or should projects be necessary achievable and sustainable? Those are two separate things. Here's why.

First, let's look at assistance. Let's say the authors are trying to say that assistance should be necessary, achievable and sustainable. That would imply that there would be clear goals, objectives and programmatic for spending aid money in Afghanistan, which I can tell you is not happening. So, for a project like the District Delivery Program (which I have first hand knowledge of and which was a project to build sub-national governance), before spending money, USAID should have established what the overarching goal was, what the intermediate objectives were, and then how to determine whether those goals were met and the timeline for taking those measurements. If they did this, it was in secret. And I'm pretty sure that although there is some programmatic language for the billions that are being spent in Afghanistan, measures are not really measuring effects. Dear reader, you and I could dream up a great-sounding programmatic justification for spending money in Afghanistan. Delivering the results is quite another monster all together. Who knows if the planned actions are achievable in a war zone being conducted in a fourth world nation. And CERTAINLY the assistance is not sustainable by the Afghan government because that's why it's called assistance. If the Afghan government had enough money to spend on all the development international donors are supporting, then we wouldn't need to assist. Right? Or am I missing something here. Hopefully we are not giving money to countries that don't need assistance.

Next, let's look at the assertion from the standpoint that it means that projects should be necessary, achievable and sustainable. In a fourth world country, where literacy is about 25%, and life expectancy is about 45 years old, any spending can be justified. Any at all. The Afghans need everything. And the more we give, the more they need. What are we trying to achieve by all this giving? Well, that depends. In a lot of cases, we give because it makes us feel good. Soldiers spend money because they are shocked by the conditions, or because a local village leader buttered up a Marine and next thing you know the market has some brand new toilet facilities. USAID spends money because they are told to do so. They are being goaded, prodded and pushed into 'supporting the military' as they say in country. So, let's say all the expenses over the past year in Helmand province were to a) make us feel good, and b) show USAID support to military actions. Did they succeed? Well, you could go there and ask around--ask soldiers and aid workers if they felt good, and ask the military if USAID is spending dollars in support of operations. I think you would find positive results. So, the spending could right away be called necessary and achievable just based on those two justifications--feel good-ism and supporting the military. Are projects sustainable? No, because they are foreign assistance. We just went over that. Are the projects that are being constructed achievable? Yes, most everything is achievable, and very little is not getting completed. From cell phone towers to market toilets to roads to water turbines, projects are being completed all across Afghanistan.

The thesis for this report is askew and politically motivated. The report goes on to make many other circular claims. Like this one, on page 2. Most of the assistance is being spent on short term stabilization programs (undefined, of course). Notice the words "short" and "term". One paragraph later it complains:

"The evidence that stabilization programs promote stability in Afghanistan is limited. Some research suggests the opposite, and development best practices question the efficacy of using aid as a stabilization tool over the long run."

Notice the conflation of applying "development best practices" and "stabilization over the long run". And refer back to the discussion about how most money is being used for stabilization in the short run. So, if it's being used for short term gains, then what's the problem and why is the next paragraph discussing "development best practices" as if that's what is going on?

Another example of circular logic is here:

"The administration is pursuing an assistance strategy based on counterinsurgency theories that deserve careful, ongoing scrutiny to see if they yield intended results."

There is a confusion of reasons for spending in Afghanistan. Not all reasons are mutually exclusive. We could be spending money in a kinetic environment to, say, get a village cleaned up and the men back to doing something productive. It might also start boosting the micro-economic environment as people have a bit to spend and a small market might open up. This may be short-term gain, but it also might not be harmful to long term prosperity. It's a crapshoot. But it seems to me that the development folks are wisely questioning spending in support of a counterinsurgency campaign, but they are unwisely not questioning long term development practices as well. Because to be completely honest, we just don't know what's what and how best to spend money when in a post-conflict environment. It's all unknown and conditional.

Here's the real issue:

"There must also be unity of effort across the U.S. Government and international community. If we conclude that a civilian program lacks achievable goals and needs to be scaled back, no other actors should take over the effort. Too often, when our civilians determine that a project is infeasible, we simply transfer the program
to other actors, such as the U.S. military or other donors."

The report is more bluster than utility. All hat and no cattle.

The history of foreign aid: "Samaritan Diplomacy"?

Not only am I back from Afghanistan, where I had extremely limited access to the internet both in terms of time and actual connectivity, but I am also back from a 2 month long "victory lap," as a friend called it, of the U.S. I got to see great America, and it was great! Starting at the Statue of Liberty and heading west (with a northerly detour to Niagara falls) I got to see all those iconic US spots that I hadn't previously seen (the corn palace in Mitchell, SD; Mount Rushmore; Grand Canyon; Petrified Forest and the Painted Desert...you get the idea).

Now that Christmas is done and I can start to settle in, I am doing some reading. In my travels I found the third book of Daniel J. Boorstin's series called "The Americans", the third book is called "The Democractic Experience" published in 1974. At the end of the book he discusses "Samaritan Diplomacy" and the changes in US perspective from pre-Marshall plan when aid to other nations was considered unconstitutional, to post-Marshall plan when US aid was expanded beyond war reparations and European nations to under developed nations. (It was first expanded by Truman in his "fourth point".)

Boorstin starts this section off: "For most of the nation's history, the United States remained uncomfortable, inept and on the whole unsuccessful in diplomacy." (p 568) Interestingly, one of the first acts using the military for aid came in 1880 during one of the Irish potato famines. Congress passed a joint resolution that allowed the Secretary of the navy to use a naval vessel to carry volutary (privately donated) relief to the Irish. Later, this was regarded as a regrettable stretching of the Constitution to appease the Irish-American vote.

According to Boorstin, not until the Marshall plan was there enough political justification to use American tax money to assist other nations. The confusion of motives for the aid stems from this time: "The American institution of foreign aid was a by-product of World War II. It marked a new stage in American foreign policy in which charitable, fiscal, political, ideological, and military motives would be more confused than ever before. Incidentally, too, foreign aid would newly confuse the techniques, attitudes, and institutions of peace with those of war, and so would help open an era in American foreign relations when the American people were neither at war nor at peace." (p 574) Boorstin claims that "except in religious missions, the nation had no substantial precendent for a world-wide program of foreign aid....foreign aid now expressed faith that American wealth could raise the standard of living of people anywhere. A people with a higher, more nearly American standard of living, it was assumed, would be more apt to be democratic, and hence more apt to be peace-loving and friendly to the United States. Implied, also was the complementary assumption that poverty, misery and industrial backwardness would make any people less peaceful and less democratic, hence more prone to communism, and therefore more inclined to join the enemies of the United States." Of course, the assumptions have not always born out.

In fact, this discussion gave me pause, particularly in light of the steady drum beat of the Millenium Development Goals, the political and military discourse about globalization and "haves" versus "have nots", and the confusion over the common use of the term "humanitarian aid" (for purely humanitarian reasons? or for political motives?)

Also relevant, the theory of counter insurgency calls for massive development expenditures in dangerous areas in order to create sympathies for the legitimate government, in order to assist people attain their basic life needs--water food shelter--so they feel better about their government and 'buy in' to it's legitimacy, lay down arms and stop harboring terrorists. But, as pointed out in the Washington Post front page yesterday, it's not that easy. USAID and the US State Department in Afghanistan, for example, only want the military to provide "security" so they can provide development assistance. Yet their vision of security and the military version are disparate. And sometimes discussions about where to deliver development assistance veer toward the absurd when geographical areas are deemed "too safe" for development assistance and other areas not safe enough. USAID doesn't want to deliver aid where it's unsafe, and they don't want to waste their aid on places where it's too safe. And they damn sure don't want the military to meddle in their humanitarian space (as they call the battlefield) by delivering aid or creating development projects.

Boorstin had it right. It's a confusion that is not about to go away. Are we confusing the world with our own confusion? Is "smart power" truly smart?

Is it a battlespace or is it "humanitarian space"?

My colleague Dr. Gene Bonventre has been hard at work considering ways to get USAID to work with DoD. One of the irritating fundamental arguments I have heard from USAID/DoS and NGO personnel against DoD's work is that we are 'crowding the humanitarian space'. Part of the problem, in my view, is that DoD doesn't view where it works as "humanitarian space." Afghanistan, for example, is a "battlespace" in my view. Some USAID personnel do not share that view and believe the country to be a "humanitarian space" that is being poisoned by DoD. In fact, some would argue that DoD's presence in Afghanistan creates danger to their personnel. From the DoD perspective, the U.S. President ordered up a war against the Taliban who were lurking in Afghanistan.

But back to the brilliant Dr. Bonventre who used to work for DoD. He apparently has been slaving away on a committee to make recommendations about how we can all get along. The report is here: http://www.usaid.gov/km/seminars/2009/civilian_military_relations.pdf. I haven't read it thoroughly yet but it looks promising.

Also, Dr. Bonventre and another brilliant former military guy, Dr. Skip Burkle, have posted their views here, on the New Security Beat blog ( http://newsecuritybeat.blogspot.com/2009/07/who-does-development-guest-contributor.html?showComment=1248726308123#c3239810732797271218).

I take issue with Skip Burkle's blog in that he views the discussion from a development perspective (the title of the blog, after all), and he maintains that USAID is best for development actions. He criticizes Secretary Gates for asking for more civilian personnel positing that Gates was asking for the personnel to be under the control of the military. Finally he criticizes DoD for be inexpert at development which he calls "winning hearts and minds" and which I would argue is "counter insurgency" when referring to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Regardless of his critique I think the question is the wrong question.

I don't think we have the luxury to have "either/or" agencies any more. I have written about this before--I think Michele Flournoy hit the nail on the head with a proposal for a new breed of security expert. Or, you could have a new breed of development expert. Either way, staff at USAID who are being paid with my tax dollars should be promoting the US Government agenda, and part of that is our national security interests. Cognizance of what that is would be a good starting point. Much like we can no longer leave military actions in these hybrid wars to the combat arms dudes who view every problem as something to shoot and kill. The world has moved on, but perhaps our gut reactions have not.

The End State--do the ends justify the means?

I was in Command and General Staff College (which the Army has now mysteriously called "Intermediate Level Education" or ILE...how unromantic) this weekend and we are learning how to write a commander's intent. A commander's intent is how the commander tells his staff what he/she wants to do next, and in general terms, how it's going to get done and what the end looks like. Don't tune out yet, there's a tie-in here.

So, we learned that the commander's intent has three parts-- the purpose of the action-to-be (we are going to charge the hill so we can take that high ground and win the war); key tasks (fix bayonets and on my order charge up hill); and then a description of the end state (the enemy will be destroyed, and we will be hoisting our flag, and the sun will come out, doves will float around). The description of the end state, as it turns out, has three parts, too: a description of friendly forces, a description of the civilian population (where relevant), and importantly a description of the enemy forces.

The instructor had a slide up on the screen and we were glibly moving right through this topic when I suddenly came to the realization that the end state for our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq do not match up across the government, I don't think. I brought this up to the class because my colleagues are all talented and come from a variety of backgrounds. The intelligence guy challenged me and thought that the end state is well articulated and clear: obliterate Al Quaeda. Yes, I retorted, but do you think that's the end state envisioned by USAID and the Department of State? And, by the way, is that an appropriate end state? If you read Dave Kilcullen and Gallula others, insurgents don't just get destroyed and disappear as do conventional militaries. They remain active at a very low level for a long time, constrained by civil and international law and police actions, then eventually they peter out. Which end state do you think the Department of State uses? And for that matter, what's the end state that USAID uses? Do they even have an end state articulated?

I keep asking the question if the Department of State and USAID are fighting a counter insurgency of every DoS and USAID employee I meet. Some will argue that they are--USAID, it has been explained to me, is providing some kind of emergency funding as opposed to development funding in Afghanistan, proof of their counter insurgency effort. I remain unconvinced. Although the type of funding certainly is important, I wonder what the vision is for the use of the funds? Humanitarian assistance? Relief of suffering? Is that truly counter insurgency? What if you relieve the suffering of the insurgents themselves? I asked this same question of a civil affairs officer who explained (patiently) that the tasks laid out by the Department of State S/CRS can be matched up to the tasks and lines of effort the military uses. Yes, we can both build clinics, but if I'm building a clinic to co-opt the population and separate it from the bad guy, and USAID is building a clinic so everyone (even the bad guys) can be healthy, we are doing the same thing for two different ends. They might be complimentary actions but then again they might not be. And it seems to me that we need to first of all fight insurgents, and as a second priority make everyone healthy and happy.

If you look at War and Health, Chris posted a blog about humanitarian deaths in Afghanistan (here:http://warandhealth.com/attacks-on-humanitarians-in-afghanistan/#comments) . Off the top of my head I think there were about 150 hostages taken and 40 murders last year. USAID does not use the same force protection posture for its employees, and their "NGOs" are most certainly left to their own judgement. Are they really fighting a war? Do their development efforts measure up to trying to stabilize the population? Or, are their actions creating more instability by creating targets of opportunity? Also, is USAID working with the Minister of Public Health in Afghanistan, say, to target the most influential community members in order to spread approval of the central government's efforts? Or is USAID doing "good work" around the country, developing the health system equally so that "everyone" can receive a health benefit? The two actions might conflict.

I want to be clear that I remain unconvinced one way or another. I simply don't have enough information. I AM convinced, however, that until the entire US government decides to fight a counterinsurgency we will not win. The military cannot win a counter insurgency in a foreign country all by itself. It can only fight the symptoms of the counter insurgency. It's up to the political and developmental sectors to really win. I can only hope they understand this. Otherwise, we will have invested millions and even billions to develop structure for what eventually becomes another oppressive and despotic regime in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Mendstate"--and the "end state" problem

I have been asked why I called this blog "Mendstate". One of the problems of the US effort in Afghanistan and Iraq (and way beyond) is an inability for all the various actors to agree on what the military calls an end state. What are the conditions that, when reached, will define a suitable "end state"? And, in the health sector, what is the role of health/medicine in attaining that end state? (Hence I derived the play on words "mendstate"--mend, end, and state....you get it, I'm sure.)

The Health and Fragile States Network (link on sidebar to right) has a series of documents posted from a Feb 2009 conference on health and security, one of which is a USAID document called "Health Programming in Post-Conflict Fragile States" that I find really fascinating. (Here's where you can find this document posted: http://www.basics.org/documents/Health_Programming_in_Post_Conflict_States_Waldman_Final.pdf) What's so fascinating about this document is the relatively cold way in which the authors delineate the argument that the goal of "health programming" in fragile states is not to make people healthy in the traditional sense. The goal of the programming is to create good governance and good government (which is created via legitimacy... see my earlier posts on legitimacy).

So, the first point the paper makes is that morbidity and mortality in post-conflict or during-conflict states is caused by violence, and therefore programs designed to create "health" (or, reduce morbidity and mortality) should therefore reduce violence:

...if the principal objective is to improve the population’s
health, perhaps disease control programs as they are usually conceived should not be
the health sector’s highest priority, at least in a context where conflict is
occurring or where the likelihood of a return to conflict is appreciable.
Instead, programs that aim to bring about a lasting ceasefire or that
contribute to the consolidation of an ongoing peace process are more
important in the immediate, highly fragile, post-conflict setting. (pg 2)

Nothing new, but a nice clear point to start the discussion.

The next point made is actually a two-fer: 1) that USAID's fragile states' strategy, therefore, is one which seeks to reduce instability by bolstering good governance and governments; and 2) that there is not enough emphasis placed on building civil society as well as governments. To do this there are two objectives, according to the paper, which should be pursued simultaneously: 1) a humanitarian objective of health care delivery, poverty reduction, education and so forth; and 2) political processes which accommodate dissent (this is my way of summarizing the suggestion in the document...it doesn't precisely address this point of accommodating dissent).

In summary, then, the USAID Fragile States Strategy has four priorities: enhance stability; improve security; encourage reform throughout areas of
governance; and develop institutional capacity. The question to be asked
(but not necessarily answered) in this paper is: what is health
programming’s role in addressing these priorities? (pg 3)

The authors then describe the trade offs between building legitimacy (which they suggest might come first, even at the expense of effectiveness, or what I termed 'performance' in my "legitimacy part II" post). Showing good intent, the authors propose, could be more important in developing political stability (and therefore reducing violence with a hoped-for commensurate reduction in morbidity and mortality) than actually putting effective "medical treatment" practices on the ground.

Next they tackle the problem of "equitability" which is a humanitarian assistance mantra that mandates that health care should be delivered equitably between all factions, regardless of race, creed, ethnicity, gender and so forth. Using a rather frank description of the Sudan as an example, the authors discuss how providing health care to the "haves" (vice the "have-nots") can contribute to peace-building and ultimately lower morbidity and mortality, as opposed to direct care to everyone equitably which in some cases may contribute to politically-driven violence, increasing morbidity and mortality.

Then a discussion follows about donor behavior, and the rift between relief and development donations and practices. The conclusion:

...others all suggest that a minimum of $15 per capita per year is required to implement a Basic Package of Health Services. While this amount is
frequently available to fund services provided through emergency and humanitarian assistance mechanisms, it is strangely true that once an emergency is deemed to have subsided, health sector funding is often reduced, while funding is increased to develop other aspects of state functions, such as elections, justice, and other infrastructure areas. It should go without saying that without adequate funding, no form of health sector programming will be successful at bringing about important changes in population health status, nor will the health sector be able to make a significant contribution to improving either the legitimacy of a new government or its effectiveness. (pg9)

And buried a bit earlier in the document, the authors make their point, I think, when they write:

As mentioned above, the focus has been on how to implement the same programs in different circumstances, rather than to look at how the circumstances
might determine the nature and design of the programs. Vaccinating 80 percent
of children is one thing, but achieving high vaccination levels in a way that
explicitly enhances the legitimacy (first) and effectiveness (later) of
government may mean settling for lower levels of achievement, at least in
some areas, paying greater attention to ensuring involvement of diverse
elements of civil society, establishing routine vaccination at local health
clinics, and so forth. Of course, it may also be the case, but hopefully not,
that vaccination programs are not as early a priority as they currently are.
How to make health system rehabilitation contribute to the attainment of
political objectives is challenging and context-specific. Clearly, though,
implanting programs designed for very different
settings is likely to be problematic, and donors need to keep their objectives clearly in mind. (pg 7)

What amazes me about this document is that it just simply ends. I'm not sure that these very important points are fully appreciated, socialized and rationalized throughout USAID, since I don't work there. But they absolutely do fit neatly in with counter insurgency strategy, and my previous questions about whether the rest of the government (USAID and the DoS) are fighting a counter insurgencies or doing business as usual (and sometimes in opposition to the counter insurgency) become slightly more salient suddenly.

I think the principles of development and counter-insurgency can converge at the point of recognizing the political origins (which are culturally derived) of problems and solutions. Here we can find room for debate and discussion as to how to describe objectives and end states, and we need to focus on developing clear thought about effecting change.

The British are getting it right!

Last month several colleagues of mine traveled to the UK to attend a conference on the UK's role in global health. The British government, it appears, have made significant progress in formulating a "whole of government approach." Presentations and documents can be found here: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/research/global_health/.

And, speaking of whole of government approaches....I had the good fortune to attend a conference on Irregular Warfare yesterday at the National Defense University. Although non-attributional, topics of general concern were: a) the inability of the U.S. Government to produce a whole of government approach (the discussed solution was a call for strong Congressional and Presidential mandate, tho there was a lot of sagacious anxiety that this would never come to pass since it appears as if the US as a whole is not really at war) in Afghanistan and Iraq; b) the use of special forces and general purpose forces in irregular warfare (the actual topic of the conference); c) several stabs at definitions of "irregular warfare"/"hybrid war"/"asymmetric war" with a certain amount of discussants thereafter abandoning attempts to be clear about these terms; d) the production of doctrine by the US military and the utility of that doctrine/the role of the doctrine; e) appropriate analysis of context -- a "how to suggestion" by one of the panels-- involving sociology.

It seems to me, from a purely anecdotal perspective, that sociology, anthropology and other previously dismissed "social sciences" are now ALL the vogue, with much side bar discussion about the Human Terrain Teams, their use (it was proposed that the data and knowledge it produces should be used earlier in the cycle of planning), and how to conceptualize "Irregular Warfare" from a sociological perspective. I have been in many meetings where the HTTs are discussed and whether regular intelligence units/agencies (called the G-2 in headquarters units) should incorporate this information rather than have stand-alone cells. These kinds of discussions are important and interesting, because they reflect the military's internal discussion about what needs to be institutionalized.

Then I went to an evening presentation by Dave Kilcullen on counterinsurgency sponsored by the Center for New American Security (URL: http://www.cnas.org/about) . Again, sociology played a role in Kilcullen's thinking, which is not really all that interesting in and of itself, but I was again struck by his calling out of sociological principals. Five years ago most guys in the military would not have cared a lick for sociology. Proof that the military can change is good. Kilcullen spoke in relatively broadly about what to do in Pakistan (as the real problem in Afghanistan), changes in strategy in Iraq and the magnitude of the problem in Iraq.

Charged up with coffee and all these ideas, I'm ready to tackle the world. Off to work!

Who was Thomas Tackaberry? And other (provocative) Counterinsurgency questions

"Today [1968] the problem of war has dwarfed all others. Science and technology have created a situation which is unique in the history of mankind....In the last 5,500 years there have been 14,531 wars, for an average of 3.18 per year; and in the last twenty years the frequency has increased to 5.2 wars a year. With these statistics, one can safely extrapolate that wars will continue.

Since achievement of the supreme objective of preventing war looks dim, statesmen are fervently pursuing the goal of keeping hostilities at the lowest possible level of intensity.... Since employment of United States military forces in the classical sense is not appropriate, or required, other components of military counterinsurgency must be used. These include psychological operations, unconventional warfare, civic action and military aid, advice, and training. These capabilities have become the primary components of counterinsurgency. Furthermore, successful counterinsurgency is as much dependent on political, social, economic, and psychological factors as upon purely military factors and sometimes more so....

Whether one is concerned with programs to alleviate political, social, or economic sources of discontent [in a counterinsurgency], with techniques of indirect influence, or with the social and political environment in which actions occur, the kind of underlying knowledge required is the understanding and prediction of human behavior at the individual, political, and social group levels....

There has been much discussion about counterinsurgency, but very little directed toward an understanding of the art of insurgency or conspiracy.... Knowledge of how to prevent internal strife is a paramount need. An essential question that must be answered is: What should be the division of effort between repression or conciliation of dissident elements in a prerevolutionary situation? To what extent should one follow a hard or soft line, or a combination of the two, and in what ways and under what conditions...?

The military might of the United States can defeat the military symptoms of insurgency: the big challenge is to insure free, stable nations. In the final analysis, this is a fight for peoples' minds."

~Thomas H. Tackaberry; American Journal of Economics and Sociology; vol 27, No 1. January , 1968. p 1-8 (available on JSTOR). (LTG Thomas Tackaberry received a Distinguished Service Cross for his service in Korea and two more for service in Vietnam. He commanded the XVIII Airborne Corps.)


How is it that this was written 40 years ago and we haven't answered some of the basic questions posed? Tackaberry suggests that the military needed research to answer the basic questions of how people view themselves within their culture, how they decided to become 'revolutionaries', and what the military could do in a counterinsurgency.

I have been thinking about Tackaberry's final assessment that the US military can defeat the "military symptoms" of a counterinsurgency, but that it was going to take a lot more than the military's conventional armament. That's old news that we have recently re-discovered.

I am drawn to consider other options than a purely military response. For example, in this "whole of government" era, where the agencies must seek ways to work together, I am left wondering what is the Department of State's counterinsurgency doctrine or strategy, exactly? And, does the USAID realize that it is joined, whether willingly is another question, to the counterinsurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan? Or, what about HHS, mentioned in the Iraq SOFA framework~ when DoD withdraws at the end of 2010, what counterinsurgency and stability actions will it take?

While these questions are certainly provocative, they are stimulated by the disturbing fact that LTG Tackaberry asked some of the same ones more than 50 years ago. Although he was interested primarily in providing the military with answers, he also recognized that more than the military was needed as a counterinsurgency response. I am just taking the logic to the appropriate conclusion.

Giving the Department of State more money is certainly a first step. But then we need a real strategy with real priorities. I understand that the DoS is ramping up its staff in Afghanistan and will make a plan. That sounds pretty good: I'm sure the Afghan desk is busy at the DoS and I know the one in DoD is swamped.

But really what I want to know is this: where is the Al Qeada desk?