Center for a New American Security

Okay, I will admit that I had never even heard of the Continuity IRA until yesterday. (So many forms of the IRA: the IRA, the PIRA, the RIRA, the OIRA, the anti-treaty IRA ...) One of the things I have noticed while reading these reports on the events in Northern Ireland -- besides how unified the peoples of Northern Ireland seem to be at the moment against violence -- is the way in which these splinter groups are dangerous because of the way they attract young men looking for a purpose. While some revolutionary movements have broad appeal and legitimacy, many of the world's militant groups we see are mostly collections of young men looking for meaning to their lives. In this way, of course, terrorist groups are a lot like the United State Marine Corps. But whereas the latter applies disciplined violence in the service of both the status quo and a democratic process, the former apply more or less indisciplined violence against the status quo and often with few checks or controls over behavior. I realize this is one of the more obvious observations this blog has ever made. But as I read these stories out of Northern Ireland, I find myself wondering whether or not the key issue in combating terror is combating the "disaffected young men" problem. I suspect this problem will get worse, not better, with unemployment rising throughout the developed world.

By the way, Edward Gorman has it right.

Easily the most eerie aspect of the last couple of days for me has been the sound on my car radio of Martin McGuinness, allegedly once a senior IRA commander, sounding just like a Northern Ireland Secretary of State from the Eighties.

I think this is because McGuinness knows these attacks are as much a challenge to Sinn Féin as they are to British rule.

They kept saying they had not been affected by the current crisis, but evidence -- both anecdotal and economic -- is piling up:

With Dubai’s economy in free fall, newspapers have reported that more than 3,000 cars sit abandoned in the parking lot at the Dubai Airport, left by fleeing, debt-ridden foreigners (who could in fact be imprisoned if they failed to pay their bills). Some are said to have maxed-out credit cards inside and notes of apology taped to the windshield.

Mark my words, this crisis in the Emirates will have a follow-on effect in those countries which depend upon remittances from the Gulf. So add yet another source of instability to the list...

P.S. Check out this list of project suspensions and cancellations in the UAE.

Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson has pieced together a stellar, short series discussing the challenges of development in Afghanistan. The first piece focuses on the frustrations of Afghans at the pace of development. Important is the discussion of moral hazard by the governor of Bamyan province.

A couple hundred miles to the north, Habiba Surabi envies the attention Khost gets.

She is the governor of Bamiyan, one of the most peaceful of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. It is also one of the most impoverished and underdeveloped.

Surabi says many of the children in Bamiyan still attend school outdoors — in tents, if they are lucky.

Of the roads that crisscross this mountainous province, only one mile is paved. Work on connecting Surabi's province to Kabul via neighboring Wardak province is going nowhere.

Surabi says Khost is supposed to get a $60 million road connecting it to neighboring Paktia province — and that it will take only 18 months to build.

It will take three years to build the road running from Bamiyan through Wardak, the Bamiyan governor says. She also says that despite promises from the Ministry of Public Works that construction would begin on the Bamiyan side, "we didn't see anything."

The slow pace of construction in the new Afghanistan and the slow flow of development dollars to the north and center of the country are leading to increasing restiveness in the previously quiescent Tajik, Uzbek, and Hazara dominated areas.

The second piece discusses the role of PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) in development and alludes to the ongoing debate about how development aid should be distributed in the country. It features an interview with one of the best former PRT commanders in Afghanistan, CDR Larry Legree.

"We've seen it everywhere else. Once we build roads through these valleys and we build bridges that connect population areas, economics just go through the roof," Legree says.

Once people are living above bare subsistence — where they are susceptible to Taliban influences — they begin to care about "starting a small business, selling excess commodities and getting to secondary and tertiary markets," he says.

It discusses USAID's reliance on foreign contractors to execute Afghan projects and ACBAR and OXFAM's criticism of the practice, not to mention the Afghan government's criticisms (CIDA and DFID, the development arms of Canada and the UK are excluded from this criticism, although they should not be).

The report goes on to say:

Christopher Dell, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, says people tend to forget how bad conditions were in the past.

He points to the fact that in 2001, Afghanistan had only 15 phone lines that could call the outside world. Now, the country has several million mobile phone subscribers who can call anywhere.

Of course, this is evidence of the poverty of our information operations campaign, if not the problems in our development efforts (although the US has still failed to fully fund even its already pledged aid to Afghanistan).

The last report deals with the now completed Afghanistan National Development Strategy. The Afghan government completed the Strategy last month and submits it to international donors in Paris next month. Nelson's report features an interview with senior advisor to the strategy Mahmud Saikal (brother of renowned Afghanistan expert Amin Saikal) as well as Kai Eide, the new UNAMA chief.

With a $50 billion price tag — more than three times as much as had been pledged here since 2002 — the strategy has the gotten the West's attention.

Most important, says Kai Eide, the United Nations' new special envoy to Afghanistan, is to convince donors that the plan can make a difference here and to determine whether the Afghan government has evolved enough to take over the reins of development.

"We do not expect to see a kind of Switzerland, or Norway, for that matter, over the next decades to come," Eide says, "but what we need to see is sufficient progress for the Afghans to sustain it and continue that by themselves."

Afghan leaders says they are are itching to do that. Jalani Popal heads the new Independent Directorate of Local Governance.

"We prefer that all the assistance to Afghanistan should go through very transparent systems, regarding the cost and process, and the government of Afghanistan should be in lead of this assistance, which is not the case yet," Popal says.

Still, questions remain about the government's ability to supervise where foreign development aid is going.

Many here point to the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development as a success story. Donors laud the ministry for getting hundreds of millions of dollars in wells, schools and other small projects out to far-flung provinces.

The lack of attention to the Afghanistan National Development Strategy by the international community and especially the military Alliances has been unfortunate, especially given the lack of any other comprehensive strategy for winning in Afghanistan (heck, we don't even know who is in charge of the various efforts there). Let me take away the surprises from the Paris conference to discuss the Strategy and request monetary support: the plan is imperfect and will be implemented imperfectly. On the other hand, the price tag for the five year plan is the equivalent of what we spend just on the military side for five months in Iraq. Given that it would finally provide a national level political strategy in Afghanistan that we could support and could actually result in victory, it seems well worth the price, despite imperfections.