Center for a New American Security

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.”

The twentieth century witnessed Europe unfold as the center of gravity for world history. And in this still early century, the Middle East and South-Central Asia have been focal points for American policymakers and others around the world. But the Greater Indian Ocean may well be the defining geo-political cauldron in the twenty-first century, according to CNAS Senior Fellow Robert D. Kaplan in his latest opus, Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power.     

Monsoon is a carefully crafted examination of the future of American Power in the context of the Indian Ocean, a region that once upon a time was the epicenter of world culture, travel, trade – wrestled over by empires of yesteryear – once again rising in prominence.

As the reader learns early on, historically, the region’s monsoon system (specifically its winds) shaped international engagement in the region, allowing travelers from the Horn of Africa and the Middle East to make the journey to India and beyond in a fraction of the time it would take states to cross the Mediterranean (which is also a much shorter distance than the leg from North Africa to India). The short duration made travel and trade expedient, allowing states to share goods and culture throughout the entire Indian Ocean region. (Indeed, we learn how the monsoon winds helped to spread Islam across the ocean.)

Today, the Indian Ocean remains a crucial region for trade, both commercial and energy. Kaplan writes:

Today, despite the jet and information age, 90 percent of global commerce and two thirds of all petroleum supplies travel by sea. Globalization relies ultimately on shipping containers, and the Indian Ocean accounts for one half of all the world’s container traffic. Moreover, the Indian Ocean rimland from the Middle East to Pacific accounts for 70 percent of the traffic of petroleum products for the entire world.

For those of you familiar with Kaplan’s work, you won’t be surprised at the level of detail and depth into history he provides the reader to help ground his or her understanding of how important the region was, which of course is necessary to fully understand the region’s resurgence in geo-political affairs. Of course, Kaplan’s personal accounts from his voyage across the Indian Ocean help the reader connect with the story he unveils as he hops across the greater region, from Oman, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Burma, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, to Zanzibar.

War is hell. And many Afghans are reminded of this every day. That was my take away from this report in The New York Times on Sunday, “In Afghan South, U.S. Faces Frustrated Residents.”

The report comes amidst U.S. and NATO military operations in Kandahar province, what experts have described as the Taliban stronghold. According to the Times’ Carlotta Gall, “As American troops mount a critical operation this weekend in the campaign to regain control in Kandahar, they face not only the Taliban but also a frustrated and disillusioned population whose land has been devastated by five years of fighting.”

Many Afghan farmers have had their land destroyed, homes demolished and lives turned upside down – forced to flee the countryside where they have spent their lives earning a living off the land, whether it’s from grapes, wheat or other valuable crops. And despite a compensation system for farmers and villagers set up by coalition forces, many Afghan farmers are left without reclamation. As Gall wrote:

Yet Afghan officials and rural residents say many farmers have fallen through the cracks, partly because of the continuing war and because many areas remain under Taliban control, but also because of the corruption and carelessness of local officials. That means that many of the poorest villagers — whether through bad luck, ignorance or fear of retaliation by the Taliban — have missed out on compensation payments and assistance programs. Mr. Hamid, the grape farmer, said his wheat harvest was burned in the fighting. He and other villagers filed for compensation through the district administration. He was told the foreigners had accepted the claim, but said he never got any money.

The Times report is another reminder that Afghanistan’s future is inextricably linked to how well Afghans fair long after U.S. and coalition troops leave the country. And as Christine and I have written in the past, natural resources will play a critical role in sustaining Afghanistan’s long-term stability and security. “Fifty percent of Afghanistan’s GDP is derived from agriculture and ranching. However, frequent droughts, in combination with unsustainable land use and deforestation, have put 75 percent of Afghanistan’s land area at risk of desertification,” we wrote in our June 2010 report, Sustaining Security: How Natural Resources Influence National Security. “President Obama’s March 2009 strategic review of Afghanistan identified ‘sustainable economic development’ – specifically ‘restor[ing] Afghanistan’s once vibrant agriculture sector’ – as a major ingredient in America’s overall effort to sap the strength of the insurgency. Indeed, as the president noted, ‘It’s cheaper…to help a farmer seed his crops than it is to send our troops to fight.’ However, the effects of environmental degradation have been devastating for the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan – and will confound long-term U.S. goals in the region unless addressed.”  

Ridding the Taliban from the land will be critical to be sure, especially in the near term. As Gall reported in her piece on Sunday, “Part of the problem is that in areas where the Taliban presence is strong, villagers cannot take compensation openly. ‘When the Taliban know you went to the district, or to the city, they come and see you and say, ‘What is this?’ Then they take the money and beat you,’ said one farmer, asking not to be named.”  But the Taliban may not be the long-term challenge for all Afghan farmers. Indeed, for many of them, sustainable resource management and adapting to a changing environment may be the greatest challenge. Only time will tell. But as the years pass by and many farmers continue to fall through the cracks, time is running short.

On Wednesday, The Washington Post reported that Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva was seeking to prohibit U.S. contractors from supplying fuel to the U.S. military base at Manas, Kyrgyzstan – a base critical to the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan, including serving as a fuel hub for refueling American warplanes there.  The report is another reminder that the U.S. military needs to consider a new strategy that helps to diversify its fuel supplies in order to hedge against becoming tethered to vulnerable sources of fuel.

Photo: An Airman with the 376th Logistics Readiness Squadron prepares to fuel a Boeing 767 before it departs. There are approximately 40 Airmen who pump more than 320,000 gallons of fuel a day at the Transit Center at Manas in Kyrgyzstan. Courtesy of Staff Sgt. Nathan Bevier and the U.S. Air Force.

Yesterday, coverage from The Washington Post and The New York Times on the soon-to-be-released Obama’ s Wars, Bob Woodward’s latest opus, generated a media storm by reporting on the internal debate within the Obama administration over what the country’s exit plan should be for Afghanistan. With all the attention on Woodward’s new book, you may have missed this other report on Afghanistan from The Washington Post which pointed to a serious challenge that could compromise our war effort there.

The Post reported that Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva is exploring options that would prohibit U.S. contractors from supplying fuel to the U.S. military base in Kyrgyzstan – a base critical to the U.S. war effort in Afghanistan. “In an interview, Kyrgyz President Roza Otunbayeva said private companies handling supplies should be replaced by a joint venture between a Kyrgyz state company and Russia's state-controlled Gazpromneft, a major source of jet fuel in the region,” the Post reported on Wednesday. 

Northern fuel supply routes have become a more attractive option to Defense Department officials in recent months due to the fact that they are relatively more secure than shipping fuel in from Pakistan. In order to diversify its fuel supply sources and reduce the vulnerability of fuel convoys traveling in from Pakistan to insurgent attacks, the Department of Defense began “asking contractors to bring in more fuel supplies by northern routes,” according to a Washington Post report back in December 2009. 

The U.S. air base at Manas, Kyrgyzstan has played a crucial role in the recent surge of troops to Afghanistan. But, as the Post pointed out, “The base also houses a fleet of air-tankers that are used for in-flight refueling of American warplanes over Afghanistan.”

I went to an event last Wednesday morning at the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP) that included a panel with James Yeager, former advisor to Afghanistan Ministry of Mines, Graciana del Castillo, a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University and Scott Worden, Senior Rule of Law Advisor at USIP, and was moderated by Raymond Gilpin, Associate Vice President for Sustainable Economies Centers of Innovation. Strange as it may seem, the event gave me a  feeling of déjà vu.  The event, “High-Value Resource Contracts, Conflict, and Peace in Afghanistan,” didn’t on its face have much in common with an event that I had attended last Monday at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, “China and the Persian Gulf.” Yet I was hearing an eerily similar refrain:  At the Wilson Center last Monday, Senior Research Fellow at the New America Foundation, Afshin Molavi, declared that “China has won the Iraq war,” in the sense that its state-owned petroleum and oil companies have acquired lucrative contracts, and have virtually become one of the dominant players in Iraq. 

Then on Wednesday, Yeunger’s very first statement of the session raised the issue of dealing with bids on Afghan mining tenders from Chinese state-owned corporations.  He argued that the current situation, where Western-owned, private corporations must submit bids against Chinese state-owned companies like MCC (China Metallurgical Group Corporation), is inherently unequal because China’s corporations are aiming only to gain access to commodities, and therefore don’t have to be financially profitable; in fact they can even operate at a loss.  Furthermore, bids from these companies are often accompanied by a financial aid package from the government of China that can be hard to turn down, especially if you’re the government of one of the poorest countries in the world, such as in Afghanistan, where a 20-30 million dollar bribe may be more tempting.  Worden also pointed out that there have been (passive) accusations that China’s mineral companies are free-riding off of the security provided by the U.S. military.