Center for a New American Security

On Sunday, Afghanistan’s Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani took steps to improve transparency in the country’s extractive resources industry by disclosing roughly 200 mining contracts that had previously been kept secret.

According to The New York Times, the move is “likely to please his supporters in the West, including the United States, who made greater openness in the Afghan government’s financial dealings a condition of billions of dollars in development assistance and aid money pledged earlier this year.”

Just two years ago, Afghanistan’s mineral wealth – estimated to be worth potentially a trillion dollars –promised hope to a torpid economy plagued by generations of war. “The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world,” The New York Times reported in June 2010.

But corruption and a lack of transparency has plagued the country’s mining industry. Reports say that there are ongoing disputes within the government over contracts to Afghans with ties to the Karzai family, including accusations that the government is steering lucrative deals to companies with ties to the Karzai family to develop the countries oil and natural gas reserves. Last month, The New York Times claimed that the country’s mineral sector had been “increasingly imperiled by corruption, violence and intrigue, and has put the Afghan government’s vulnerabilities on display,” and may even be helping fund Afghan insurgents.  “A recent Defense Department analysis said criminal mining syndicates were smuggling chromite over the border, paying protection money to the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqani insurgent network,” The New York Times reported.  

The New York Times reported on Sunday that Afghanistan’s mineral wealth could be contributing to instability in some parts of the country, particularly areas beyond Kabul’s control.

Just two years ago, Afghanistan’s mineral wealth – estimated to be worth potentially a trillion dollars –promised hope to a torpid economy plagued by generations of war. “The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world,” The New York Times reported in June 2010.

“But the wealth has inspired darker dreams as well,” The New York Times reported yesterday. “Officials and industry experts say the potential resource boom seems increasingly imperiled by corruption, violence and intrigue, and has put the Afghan government’s vulnerabilities on display.”  

The U.S. government took several steps over the weekend to reassure Afghans that America will not abandon their country once the NATO combat mission ends in 2014. Although the assurances do not include a security commitment to Afghanistan per se, the Obama administration and other international partners have agreed to continue development assistance aimed at improving the tenuous security environment. 

On Saturday, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton elevated Afghanistan’s role as a strategic partner of the United States. “The United States declared Afghanistan a major, non-NATO ally on Saturday, with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton personally delivering the news of Afghanistan’s entry into a club that includes Israel, Japan, Pakistan and other close Asian and Middle Eastern allies,” The New York Times reported.

Afghan poppy production is on the rise in some areas and may indicate backsliding in crucial provinces that have seen security gains in recent years. According to a report from McClatchy on Saturday, Nangarhar province has been heralded by U.S. and Afghan officials as a success story in recent years due to the successful routing of Taliban insurgents and near-eradication of poppy crops that dominated the province. Nangarhar, a major financial and political hub, has carried strategic significance for U.S. and coalition forces, according to the McClatchy report: “The province controls the centuries-old trade – and invasion – corridor that runs from Pakistan’s port of Karachi through the fabled Khyber Pass to Kabul, and north to Central Asia.”

The successful counterinsurgency and poppy eradication efforts there provided U.S. and Afghan officials with a success story that they believed could also be used as a model for the other 33 Afghan provinces. However, the success in Nangarhar appears to be short lived.

“The tide has since turned,” McClatchy reported on Saturday. “Poppy growing is rising, as is support for the insurgency, fueled in part by a harsh government poppy-eradication drive that’s sparked clashes and led some farmers to sow land mines. Many people fear that one of the most crucial provinces will only slip deeper into bloodshed and corruption as U.S. troops withdraw.”

The growth in poppy production also bodes poorly for other U.S. and international development projects that have sought to wean Afghan farmers off a dependence on poppy in lieu of food crops that could help feed famished Afghans. Poppy remains a valuable cash crop, even more so after a 2010 decline in opium production, largely resulting for a disease that attacked poppy crops. According to McClatchy, before 2010, opium sold for approximately US$165 per kilogram. Now it earns farmers as much as US$400 per kilogram.

The disturbing report of a U.S. Army sergeant slaying at least 16 Afghan civilians on Sunday in southern Afghanistan is the most recent in a series of incidents exacerbating tensions between Afghans and Americans. Three weeks ago, the U.S. military accidentally burned copies of the Koran at Bagram Airbase that incited deadly anti-U.S. demonstrations across the country. These incidents are not only exacerbating tensions between U.S. military personnel and Afghans in the near term, but may also undermine the ability of U.S. aid and development personnel from establishing the presence and relationships they need with Afghans to complete development projects essential to the country’s long-term stability.

On Sunday, The New York Times published a report citing concerns that aid and development companies share about Afghanistan’s deteriorating security environment. The spate of demonstrations set off by the Koran burnings three weeks ago and added to by the U.S. Army sergeant’s killing of at least 16 civilians, coupled with the Karzai government’s plan to ban private security companies by the end of March, is worrying aid and development groups charged with carrying out projects in some of the most volatile regions of the country. According to The New York Times, the situation has “left the private groups that carry out most of the American-financed development work in Afghanistan scrambling to sort out their operations, imperiling billions of dollars in projects.” The prospect that these development projects could be left unfinished “threatens a vital part of the Obama administration’s plans for Afghanistan, which envision a continuing development mission after the end of the NATO combat mission in 2014,” The New York Times report added.

This morning, The Wall Street Journal rightly reported that the United States faces considerable costs with fueling its forces in Afghanistan, both in blood and treasure. The military is vulnerable to attacks against supply convoys that cross from Pakistan into Afghanistan, for example. The Department of Defense recently estimated that attacks against fuel convoys have caused thousands of causalities in Iraq and Afghanistan, including service members, contractors and civilians; exact figures are difficult to come by. Meanwhile, every one dollar increase in the price per barrel of oil costs the Department of Defense about an additional $130 million dollars on its energy bill.

Having a conversation about the critical energy security challenges the military faces is important, especially in this fiscal environment where potential cuts could be made to programs that bolster the military’s ability to redress its energy vulnerability. But it is important to get the facts straight, if for nothing else because we need an accurate baseline to measure progress against.

The Wall Street Journal reported this morning – in its headline and body copy – that fueling the force “costs a lot of money – up to $400 a gallon, by military estimates.” This “$400 a gallon” figure is thrown around quite often when DOD energy security comes up, and I understand why: it’s a striking amount to pay for fuel and it is illustrative. But in my conversations with DOD energy experts, this price is rarely paid and more or less reflects the worst case scenarios; situations, for example, where fuel bladders have to be flown by helicopter or a C-130 to remote outpost that have to be refueled in flight in order to make their delivery. And even this example may not accurately convey the worst case scenarios that defense logisticians are dealing with when the price of fuel grows this high.

Yesterday at the Rayburn House Office Building, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) hosted a discussion, “Biodiversity Conservation in Afghanistan Advances U.S. Security Interests,” focusing on improving livelihoods and governance through natural resource management in Afghanistan – a cornerstone to long-term stability and achieving U.S. security interests in the state.  As I learned yesterday, currently the most significant threats to Afghanistan’s natural resources include illegal hunting and trading, as well as an increase in deforestation and desertification.  “Almost 80% of Afghanistan’s people depend directly upon the natural resource base for their survival and livelihoods, and three decades of near-continuous conflict has badly degraded this base,” said Afghanistan program director of the Wildlife Conservation Society, Dr. David Lawson.  Most of WCS’s work in Afghanistan is community-based conservation, focusing on the local level, mobilizing local communities to institute new policies, laws and regulations and training community members “in natural resource management so they can work together to help build a sustainable future,” Lawson said.   

Another part of WCS’s work involves central governmental capacity building, which works to “improve the capacity of the government to take responsibility and manage the country’s critical resources,” according to Lawson. With help from the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock and the National Environmental Protection Agency, WCS has helped the Afghan government to write environmental laws and regulations, as well as build nationally protected area networks, train officials and build government structures.  Afghan individuals and communities participating in natural resource management benefit by generating income (some of them for the first time) and, as Lawson noted, “being able to benefit directly from conservation activities, and that actions taken to protect and preserve the environment can directly contribute to poverty reduction and improved community livelihoods.” 

If I had to pick one news story that stood out to me this weekend, it would have to be this piece from the Sunday Washington Post reporting on the growing domestic backlash to India’s land grab. The story stood out to me, in part, because land rights, use and seizing are issues we have not analyzed too much on the Natural Security blog. But as this report from yesterday’s Post portends, it is a creeping trend that we are likely to read more about as farmers in developing countries seek to hold onto their land in countries where population growth is shrinking the amount of arable farmland at the same time governments try to industrialize their economies by renting land to domestic or foreign companies.

“All over India, farmers are coming into conflict with the government as it tries to satisfy the country’s insatiable hunger for land for industry, infrastructure and urban housing,” the Post reported. “And the decades-old way of doing business — the government seizing the land under a British colonial law, paying a token compensation to farmers and then bullying people into submission — just isn’t working anymore.”

The report details a number of billion dollar investments being made by South Korean and Indonesian companies, to name just a few. Yet as the government attempts to capitalize on the interest from foreign companies, long-time farmers are rebuffing attempts by the government to seize their land. As a result, “Projects worth tens of billions of dollars have been held up as farmers, backed by local politicians and empowered by India’s vibrant television news channels, have found their voice — and said no,” according to the Post.

Later this morning, John Nagl and I are going up on the Hill where John will join a panel of experts to discuss military fuel convoys, energy for our bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and DOD’s need for a long-term energy strategy that moves the U.S. military away from petroleum over the next 30 years (very much in line with the report John and Christine wrote in September 2010, Fueling the Future Force).

In the spirit of the day, I wanted to draw attention to this very thoughtful report published last week by ClimateWire assessing the challenges the U.S. Army is facing with its renewable energy goals in Afghanistan. The report is very good and is worth reading in full if you haven’t already.  It reports on the environmental challenges that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is attempting to adapt to in order to build wind turbines and other renewable energy projects that are difficult to build in the easiest conditions, let alone in a war-torn country. To cite just one example, a 1 megawatt wind turbine the U.S. Army hoped to build to provide power to a new facility for Afghan security forces can’t be built because the facility is remote, and the roads won’t support a crane large enough to construct the turbine. Instead they have opted for smaller 10-kilowatt wind turbines. The challenges of turning the blueprints into reality are not surprising, and this is a theme that runs through the report.

March 22nd will mark the eighteenth World Water Day, an annual UN-sponsored day to recognize the importance of water, including its increasing scarcity and competition for it. As we approach this annual event, a new Senate Foreign Relations Committee report, Avoiding Water Wars: Water Scarcity and Central Asia's Growing Importance for Stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, should help frame the conversation that many will have this month on water and security.

Water challenges have increasingly garnered the attention of top U.S. policymakers. Secretary Clinton told an audience last March on World Water Day that “The stability of young governments in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other nations depends in part on their ability to provide their people with access to water and sanitation.” Last month, the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testified before Congress that, “The growing pressure generated by growing populations, urbanization, economic development, and climate change on shared water resources may increase competition and exacerbate existing tensions over these resources.” In places such as Yemen, the next decade looks bleak due to the country’s declining oil reserves and water resources, Clapper said. And now the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, while focused on Central Asia, has shed light on the implications of water shortages for security broadly. 

Yet Secretary Clinton and others have acknowledged that water scarcity is just as much an opportunity as a challenge. “In the United States,” she said last March, “water represents one of the great diplomatic and development opportunities of our time.” Indeed, the Senate report acknowledged the Obama administration’s efforts to integrate water issues into U.S. bilateral and multilateral arrangements, including in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which received about 47 million dollars from the United States in 2009 to fund  water-related projects, according to the committee report. “For the first time, the United States has elevated water-related issues in its bilateral relationships with priority countries, such as Afghanistan and Pakistan,” the report said. “Accordingly, the U.S. strategy and foreign assistance budgets now include significant investments allocated toward activities that promote water security through high-visibility projects, such as expanding water storage capabilities and irrigation.”