Afstan: Governance is indeed the answer

But it will take quite some time for truly effective national government to come into being, and foreigners can only push so hard. Meanwhile, there must be security provided for that government's efforts to expand its sway--security that in the end will have to be provided by Afghan forces. But that too will take quite some time.

Canada and its allies in Afghanistan have "completely underestimated" the importance of building strong and effective local government institutions, and will not defeat the Taliban until they do so, said Tom Koenigs, the United Nations' most senior official in Afghanistan.

"We have made mistakes, and we shouldn't repeat them," Mr. Koenigs said this week in Washington. "We have completely underestimated the challenge of governance in the southern provinces. The resurgence of the Taliban there was only possible because there was a power vacuum."

Mr. Koenigs, a longtime UN official and former deputy mayor of Frankfurt, was speaking Wednesday during a symposium on Afghanistan at the United States Institute of Peace, an independent think-tank founded by the U.S. Congress.

He has completed his first year in Afghanistan, where, he said, "the Taliban have not been defeated" despite more than 14 months of hard military action by Canada, the U.S., Britain and other allies.

More important, he added, "the victory over Afghans' hearts and minds, which at the moment is everybody's language, hasn't been seen."

Mr. Koenigs said at least "50 per cent" of the problems in Afghanistan are a result of inadequate, corrupt or non-existent government services, particularly in the rural parts of southern provinces, such as Kandahar, where the Taliban draws much of its power...

Mr. Koenigs said one of the great failures of the NATO coalition in southern Afghanistan has been to focus on a military, rather than a "governance" solution, to the insurgency.

Even more recent attempts to defeat the insurgency by winning the hearts and minds of civilian Afghans -- by building roads, holding health clinics in local villages, and focusing on economic aid -- won't solve the problem, he said.

"A focus on governance is even more necessary than on other kinds of development. Hearts and minds will not be won in Afghanistan by development aid, but by governance...

Mr. Koenigs said NATO must refocus its military campaign from one of fighting battles and manning distant garrisons to one of training and supporting Afghan government forces to do the fighting and patrolling instead.

He said a study of the 139 suicide bombings carried out in Afghanistan last year showed an interesting pattern: The only areas of the country where no attacks took place were those where the population felt it wasn't under occupation by foreign soldiers, or soldiers of a different religion...

As for development, an article that relates directly to Operation Achilles.

This is not encouraging in terms of the longer run:

A majority of people in Britain would like their country’s soldiers currently deployed in Afghanistan to be brought home soon, according to a poll by YouGov released by the Sunday Times. 53 per cent of respondents believe the troops are serving no useful purpose and should be withdrawn.

Conversely, 30 per cent of respondents consider British soldiers should stay in Afghanistan until the job is done, and 16 per cent are undecided...