SAT-A to be demilitarized

I read a couple of things this past week that surprised me, so I thought I'd do a bit of digging, and see if I could figure out if what I'd read was true.

First was the news from Dr. Nipa Banerjee that the Strategic Advisory Team - Afghanistan (Op Argus) was getting "demilitarized."

Before SAT could prove if it would leave a permanent imprint on the building of sustainable capacity, its life was cut short as the Canadian government took the decision to replace the DND SAT with a civilian crew. While there is the potential of the inclusion of a few of our CF colleagues in the new team, the strength of a well-disciplined commander-led team will be missed. The value added of a DND team lay in the deployment of disciplined teams, well-trained and supervised to deliver at the operational levels. Based on my personal experience, such high standards are not expected from civil servants or contracted civilian personnel, and even less encouraged. In addition, the reality is that CF personnel, for obvious reasons, are less reticent to being deployed in posts with difficult security. It has not been easy for CIDA to recruit seasoned and experienced staff for Afghanistan. On the other hand, SAT has not had a dearth of experienced officers for placement.

Unfortunately, this decision seems to be in the works: I expect something official in the next few weeks that Op Argus is being scaled back, changed, or completely wound down - likely the latter. However the Powers That Be phrase it, it's doubtful that SAT-A will continue in anything resembling its current format, which is a terrible shame as I see it.

At least one person I spoke with at DND was toeing the party line: the CF has accomplished what it set out to do with the SAT-A, which was to get certain Afghan ministries up to IOC (Initial Operating Capability). Now that the capacity has been built, it's time for the teachers to step back and take the training wheels off. And better for the CF to pull out when they might still be missed, rather than overstaying their welcome. Especially if the diplomatic intrigue and politics is going to start ramping up, and we need people in these roles who can play that new game; our people are technical advisers only, and not well suited to that environment.

Yadda, yadda.

In my opinion, that's pretty much shinola. The bureaucrats at DFAIT and CIDA have had their noses out of joint about this mission from the beginning, and earlier this year they finally had complained long and loud enough that the government and DND - specifically Rick Hillier - caved in. Pick your battles, and all that. So in April of this year, the CDS apparently advised the Ottawa mandarins that DND wouldn't be extending Argus beyond the end of the current rotation (can you imagine that phone call? - "It's all yours, boys!" followed by a loud gulp on the other end of the line).

I can only imagine how pleased the Karzai government was about that development, since they struck this deal with Hillier specifically because they wanted Canadian military help. Oh well, who cares what the Afghan government needs when there's a civil service turf war to fight?

The problem was, at that point the Ottawa mandarins had to stop bitching and actually start planning to put live bodies on the ground to do what the uniformed ones have been up until now. I'm reliably informed that in June, they flinched hard and asked if DND would extend the current deployment or send in a new rotation for a couple of months to tide them over until they could get their poop in a pile. Hillier informed them that that wasn't an option. Translation: you wanted us out of "your" AOR, so we're out - suck it up.

This situation points to one of the key issues favouring the CF in this advisory role in the first place: you have a decent-sized pool of ready and willing talent that you can deploy continuously through multiple rotations. Which other federal government department can say that? How many volunteers with the right skill sets will be forthcoming from DFAIT and CIDA for these roles, on a twelve-month rotation?

I'm only guessing here, but from the silences I received on the other end of the line talking with a couple of people about it, I'd wager many of these positions will be contracted out. They got really silent when I pointed out this job posting with an organization called CANADEM:

Deadline: Aug 08, 2008

CANADEM is seeking a senior education professional to go to Afghanistan and work as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Afghan Ministry of Education. The selected candidate will provide vital support to the Ministry for the overall rehabilitation of the Afghan education system. The terms of reference below are a point of departure for this assignment and will evolve in response to emerging needs and issues.

...

Major Responsibilities include:

1. Build capacity of the Ministry by providing mentoring and coaching support to departmental directors and other key staff members.


2. Provide independent advice for the Minister of Education on key organizational management and strategy development initiatives in the Ministry of Education.


3. Support Identification of research needs (for policy or programming purposes) and oversee partner institutions in undertaking research activities, situation analyses and preparation of research reports and papers.


4. Act as a focal point and liaison for existing education sector donor and NGO coordination group. and help establish practices that enhance other forms of donor coordination.


5. In partnership with other Ministry staff and donor organizations provide technical and programmatic advice to develop a five-year strategic plan for education incorporating key benchmarks of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy.


6. Support the organizational reform process of Public Administrative Reform in the Ministry.


7. Provide strategic guidance and technical assistance to initiatives to educational reform into Government development policies and planning frameworks at national and sub-national levels.


8. Provide strategic guidance and substantive technical assistance to Afghan Government (all levels) and civil society partners by establishing mechanisms for ongoing dialogue for policy dialogues on strategic issues related to education (i.e., leading forums).


9. Provide guidance and technical assistance in the development of capacity-building initiatives for Government and civil society.


10. Support efforts to establish systems and practices for harmonious and functional relations with Government agencies, civil society organizations, research institutions, universities and international organizations working in Afghanistan on educational reform issues.


11. Provide other support to the Minister as required.

Again, I can't profess any specific inside knowledge about this, but that sounds an awful lot like what our SAT-A men and women are doing right now.

So, to recap, it looks increasingly like Canada is going to pull an incredibly helpful mission that is easily staffed by uniformed officers, and replace it with an unwieldy and unproven one that will need to be at least partly filled by contractors because no other department than DND can staff such a mission from its own ranks. All to satisfy an Ottawa turf-war.

How screwed up is that?