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The Cost of Civilians at War
I was talking on Friday night with a friend of mine who works on Afghanistan policy, and we began discussing the trickle (or "surge") of civilians into southern and eastern Afghanistan to facilitate operations there. One of the things I had not realized was that while the cost of deploying a U.S. Army BCT to Afghanistan for a year is high ($8.2 billion, to be exact), so too is the cost of deploying a civilian for a similar 12-month tour of duty. Once you add the costs up, a civilian in Afghanistan costs approximately $500,000 to feed, secure, pay and equip for a 12-month period. (If you're a British civilian, meanwhile, the costs go up to approximately $800,000. Pesky weak dollar...)
The extreme cost of deploying civilians to war zones is just one of the reasons why a vast army of civilians is not being deployed into Afghanistan as those who read the president's new policy issued in March (.pdf) might have expected. One of the things that civilians and military officers already serving in Afghanistan have stressed for the past few years is that how many civilians you send to Afghanistan matters far less than which civilians with which skills you send. Lenin may have claimed that quantity has a quality all its own, but operators on the ground attest to the fact that bad civilian personnel are worse than no civilian personnel.
I am now off to a coffee to discuss precisely these issues with two friends who know more about aid and development in Afghanistan than any other two people I know. One question before I go, though: we all know Matthew Hoh, since returning from four months in Zabul Province, has spoken with everyone from the Washington Post to Fareed Zakaria to Tony Blinken. But Hoh's predecessor in Zabul, who I met while visiting this summer, is apparently also now back in the country after serving in Zabul for the full 12 month tour. Is anyone making an effort to reach out to her?
I doubt it.
[CLS, RIP]
Something else worth
Something else worth considering is the ever-rising costs of qualified civilians willing to be deployed to Afghanistan. Ideally, you want civilians with:
a) field experience in the region;
b) functional expertise on a particular topic;
c) are actually willing to deploy to rural Afghanistan for an extended stretch
The problem is that folks with A and B are increasingly reluctant to commit to C. and why should they, when instead they can command soaring daily rates as consultants for beltway bandits?
If you think civilian
If you think civilian contractors are expensive, try firing a federal employee. A federal civilian employee is a long-term, expense that brings with him or her a ton of costs (hefty benefits). And given the difficulty of firing or laying them off, we are hesitant to hire them.
But, I'm not so sure cost is the issue in Afghanistan. I think the issue is capacity. We don't have enough of the right civilians (due to the problem above, perhaps?). State has less than 1,000 personnel at last count in Afghanistan because that's all that it can muster.
Perhaps the answer lies down
Perhaps the answer lies down the CNAS hallway. See Nagl, John. "The Expeditionary Imperative." Wilson Quarterly. Winter 2009. http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=wq.essay&essay_id=501753
The lack of qualified civilians to deploy to Afghanistan is a basic structural problem within the U.S. government. Unlike the U.S. military that can train 18 year old enlisted soldiers, or college graduates through TBS, or OCS and ROTC. There is no USAID, State or other civilian equivalent. The closest you come to those types of training are found in the PeaceCorps or Teach For America.
In this job market, thousands of college grads would jump at the chance to go through a training program to prepare them for such jobs. The resources aren't in place and the bureaucratic cultures aren't moving.
*The Civilian Response Corps is too small and too exclusive to really develop a large-scale U.S. government capability for post-conflict reconstruction.
Why is a UK civilian more
Why is a UK civilian more expensive than a U.S. one? Just something about economics that I don't understand?
Tintin, Because the pound is
Tintin,
Because the pound is worth more than the dollar (wild guess).
It also matters where you
It also matters where you send them. Most state and other depts' employees stop at the embassy, ISAF HQ, and IJC levels. Very few filter down to the brigade level where they can be put to the best use.
I'm one of those civilians
I'm one of those civilians angling for a job in Afghanistan....not for the money but because I believe in the mission. I have 20+ years of experience living and working overseas including work in emerging countries. My academic credentials are excellent. I am willing to serve in Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul, Paktika, Nuristan or wherever I am needed. I am willing to do it for more than a one-year term because experience will matter in this endeavor. My health is excellent and I am not adverse to primitive living conditions, having spent a fair time in jungles, mountains, deserts and elsewhere. I have studied COIN in depth and spent months reading everything and anything I can on Afghanistan and Pakistan...including this site.
Yet despite numerous applications to USAID, State and others, I have yet to hear from anyone. The USG bureaucracy is amazing.....and formidable. Afghanistan will be lost by the time the bureaucrats finish their screening and interviewing.
I'll parrot the two comments
I'll parrot the two comments above. I'm former military, with experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan, but dealing with the outrageously bad government hiring system has been a constant source of stress for me. I'd be lying if pay and job function weren't important, but a lot of the time even that basic information is either misleading or wrong on Government website.
If you want a civilian "surge" it would make sense to me to actively reach out to those civilians that may want to give it a go. I have not seen that happen--It is often talked about, but never executed.
I am not sure why this is so
I am not sure why this is so hard, perhaps it's the top down approach.
Let's look at it from the bottom, this is not Rocket science. We are there to improve the lives of the Afghan people. It's the little things that count access to medical care, access to money, access to ideas and access to that system to make things happen in that village. A civilian teamed up with that company to address the needs of that village, the troops should be concern about security, but dealing with the people could be done by civilians.
There is a ready body of personnel that could be tapped to fit the civilian surge, former military, retired personnel from all the branches.
I will use myself as an example, Retired Navy, 55, some college, served as an HM (Hospital Corpsman) and AG (Aerographer's Mate). About half of my 20 years was at sea. I have visited many countries while aboard ship and have always fit in with the locals. I also have done two overhauls while attach to ships. Plus I have raised two kids and kept up a household of four for 13 years. I have also had much work in keeping track of budgets over $100,000 both on board ship, at shore command medical clinics and at home.
I know I could make a difference to one village, I know the system, I have read many books on COIN and I have taken anthropology courses. I can sleep on the floor, I can wait in line, I get along with everybody, I have some wisdom and patients. I like to believe that I have honor and the willingness to see the job to the finish. Plus I know something of gangsters and crooks, I was a Navy Recruiter.
Really it not that hard to find the help the troops need to complete there mission.
You just need to ask....
"The Obama administration
"The Obama administration has been developing the Compact for months in coordination with U.S. allies and Karzai's government. It's tried to keep the effort quiet so it could be presented as an Afghan initiative, according to several U.S. and European officials and the U.S. government document. "Afghans must lead," the document says.
The document outlines proposals for ceding greater power to authorities who run Afghanistan's 34 provinces and nearly 400 districts, including providing them with more development funds and the ability to direct them to projects that they think are most needed."
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/78214.html
Looks like big thoughts are happening after all.
Concur with the lack of
Concur with the lack of outreach. I personally know several people who want to go. One person in particular has applied and been denied. He is a construction contractor with experience in building schools and other public facilities in developing countries in South America. Can you say perfect fit for a PRT engineer (probably much better suited than the Navy Submarine Officer or AF Officer currently at the PRTs) as a QA on military or USAID contructions projects?
Never let good intentions,
Never let good intentions, or a great skill set stand in the way of a good old fashioned bureaucratic tape fest.
Not surprised that good people, with good intentions and good skills sets find it hard to get through all that red tape.
Worrisome. here I am working through a degree in Security Studies, plus project management qualifications all with the intention of lending a hand. Here's hoping the Australian government or the private sector is a little more accessible.
On the topic of the private sector - does anyone know if there is an obligation on the part of say a private company mining in Afghanistan to provide infrastructure. It seems to make good business sense. Hey we're here to mine/build/ etc but we're also going to build you a new mosque , a new school and educate you in sustainable farming techniques.
So don't shoot at us while we do these things first
The theme in this post and
The theme in this post and some of the comments seems to reflect a pretty poor understanding of international development, how it works, and which kinds of Americans are best able to contribute to it.
From the blog:
"operators on the ground attest to the fact that bad civilian personnel are worse than no civilian personnel."
From the comments:
"Civilian experience in development and post-conflict reconstruction is extremely hard to come by."
I would argue that the counter-argument to your first point is that a bad military officer is worse than no military officer, so I'm not sure if it's worth singling out civilians in this case.
On the second point, I think you'd find that there would be quite a bit of disagreement among humanitarian and development professionals about whether "civilian experience...is hard to come by." American NGOs have been doing development and relief work for more than 60 years, and therefore have much more experience and success "doing" it than anyone in the military. I'm not trying to discount the development successes that the military has contributed to in some places, nor the successful transitions that many former military personnel have made to USAID, State, and the PRTs.
That said, it's important that readers of this blog understand that the jury is still out on whether the military is actually successful at promoting development. While USAID programs have monitoring and evaluation teams to track the impacts and outcomes of their programs, the military has no such capacity to evaluate its contribution to development. Sure, there's anecdotal evidence that there have been some successes, but there's also a lot of evidence that shows that military development efforts (which are often half-cocked, involve spreading cash around, or building a random school) either have no long-term effect or are counter-productive.
Look at it this way, you wouldn't recommend that an aid worker who had served in Afghanistan for the past two years should become a lieutenant in the Army based on his experience in-country, so why assume that someone with two years of military experience in Afghanistan could be a development worker?
Again, I don't want to disparage this blog or its readers (of which I am an avid one), and I won't disagree that some of the commenters who preceeded me could probably be very successful leading a development program. I just wanted to point out that qualified civilians do exist, and they're already working in every developing country in the world. And development and humanitarian workers are no strangers to danger either. Oftentimes, they serve in war zones for years before the U.S. Military arrives, if at all. I, for one, am writing this comment from a conflict zone.
The inability to fill civilian jobs in Afghanistan is a reflection of the inadequate structure and funding of USAID and other USG development programs, not a shortage of qualified civilian development workers.
"One question before I go,
"One question before I go, though: we all know Matthew Hoh, since returning from four months in Zabul Province, has spoken with everyone from the Washington Post to Fareed Zakaria to Tony Blinken. But Hoh's predecessor in Zabul, who I met while visiting this summer, is apparently also now back in the country after serving in Zabul for the full 12 month tour. Is anyone making an effort to reach out to her?
I doubt it."
Damn. Sounds like Abu Muqawama really needs a war in Afghanistan. This sounds like the sour grapes of someone who senses the oppurtunities that come with more war slowly slipping away.....
Regarding Hoh's letter --
Regarding Hoh's letter -- regardless of how long the guy was in Afghanistan, what his rank or rating was, etc. -- are we prepared to agree or disagree with his very straightforward and very specific contentions, for example:
- Participating in what is essentially a 35 year-old civil war.
- Encouraging an ideology and system of government that is unknown and unwanted.
- Pitts urban, secular, educated and modern against rural, religious, illiterate and traditional.
- Represents (in the eyes of the locals) an outside occupation force against which the insurgency is justified.
- Fight back is mainly by regular joe blows in the villages and valleys and not the Taliban.
If what he is saying is true (or false), then THIS is what we are discussing/debating, not how long he has been in Afghanistan, what other people who have been in Afghanistan think, how many TV shows Hoh has been on etc.
That just skirts the issue(s) and appears as subterfuge.
Correction to second to last
Correction to second to last paragraph above:
.... THIS is what we should be discussing/debating....
Regarding Hoh's points about
Regarding Hoh's points about Afghanistan highlight by Visitor Can Handle the Truth, Hoh does not take the next step and argue that those conditions make it impossible to prevail in Afghanistan. Instead, he argues that the result of the conflict has so little bearing on broader national interest that it is not worth the lives and money it would cost even if we were to succeed--and that that is the reason he resigned.
I recall (if anyone has better information please add) two arguments by Hoh as to why Afghanistan is of low strategic import. One, even if the Taliban were to return to power in Afghanistan, they would have learned their lesson from 2001 and would not bring al Qaeda back with them. Two, Afghanistan/Pakistan is not that important to al Qaeda because a) al Qaeda has morphed into a motivational organization that inspires Muslims dwelling in western locales to plot attacks and b) there are other places (Yemen, Somalia) the al Qaeda could use if it were to lose AfPak.
What I'd like to know is why no one has asked him what qualifications he has on those issues. I would grant that his experience in Afghanistan and Iraq gives him adequate qualifications to issues assessments about conditions there and the strategic situation (did he even have anything in his assessment that is not in McChrystal's assessment?), but what about outside Afghanistan. A Taliban reconquest of Afghanistan would essentially mean a combination of the Quetta Shura and Haqqani and Mahsud networks. Has Hoh had any contacts with any of those groups to say anything about their intents? Does he have anything to contradict Richard Engel who says that members of those groups have told him that they would like to conduct attacks on US soil? On the second point, has Hoh ever investigated an Islamic attack, either a successful one or one that was foiled, to determine what steps were critical towards planning and implementing it? Does he have any explanation for why all the plotters at some point stopped in Pakistan for training?
When you factor in the
When you factor in the additional cost of civilians being de-prioritized in everything from housing to transportation, especially on the contractor side, that cost-per-unit skyrockets. For instance, during a RIP/TOA, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan easily burn an extra $20 million per week in idle labor costs.
Hon's primary qualifications
Hon's primary qualifications would seem to be those of a reasonable man who is presenting what seems to be reasonable questions/ideas.
When the child cried out: "the emporer is not wearing any clothes!" did the crowd then proceed to grill the child as to his rank or rating, how long he had been in-country, what the other children like him thought (did they agree or disagree), how many TV shows he had been on, whether he had properly "taken the next step" in his observation/argument, what his qualifications were, whether he was contradicted by someone named Richard Engel, whether he had ever investigated a "no clothes on emperor" incident in the past, nor did they require him to provide an explanation as to why the emporer may have been naked on this or some previous occasion.
No, the crowd did not do this.
Instead, the crowd simply looked in the appropriate direction, and made an honest evaluation as to whether the child was right and whether the emporer was, in fact, sans clothes.
To conclude: We should do
To conclude: We should do what the crowd did in the "Emperor's New Clothes."
Assess the validity (or lack thereof) re: Hoh's arguments, observations and contentions -- and not get hung up in all this other BS.
Ditto what you say, Visitor
Ditto what you say, Visitor and BS.
The 500,000 shouldn't be to
The 500,000 shouldn't be to surprising; a GI costs us over 250,00 per year.
Civilians PRT members are paid very handsomely for there work, as well.
"Assess the validity (or
"Assess the validity (or lack thereof) re: Hoh's arguments, observations and contentions -- and not get hung up in all this other BS."
Hoh: The Taliban will not bring al Qaeda back to Afghanistan with them should they retake power. Engel: I've interviewed several Taliban commanders and they've said there's not much difference between us and al Qaeda. Which should we believe?
Hoh: All the planning took place in the West. Yes, but every plotter at some point trained in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Which is more important?
Tim: "Let's look at it from
Tim:
"Let's look at it from the bottom, this is not Rocket science. We are there to improve the lives of the Afghan people. "
Correct -- it's not rocket science. Rocket science is easy. It's just math and engineering.
Improving the lives of the Afghan people, on the other hand, is really hard. The hard part comes with the "people" thing. People are a lot more complicated than rockets, and they talk back a lot more. :)
Good luck!
Maybe the ultimate question
Maybe the ultimate question / evaluation method for Hoh and his letter:
If we were to ask the people of Afghanistan (and Pakistan?) whether they thought Matthew Hoh had his shitzsu together -- and the vast majority of them were to say something like, "Yes! Absolutely! -- then would this help us to cutt through the BS and get a better handle on deciding what we should do and why?
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