by SAM ABRAMS
On November 16 in Washington D.C., the SAIS Review — that’s the journal of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, in case you didn’t know — hosted counter-insurgency experts David Kilcullen, Shawn Brimley, Max Manwaring, Chris Preble and Tom Donnelly to discuss insurgents, the future of war, and U.S. strategy. The audio is available here.
Full disclosure: I am the Review’s managing editor.
Kilcullen opened the show with a keynote address that included a brief assessment of Afghanistan. Kilcullen said Afghanistan is more like a stabilization operation than a counter-insurgency campaign. In gross, oversimplified terms, Kilcullen explained, violence in Afghanistan can be understood as a cycle: the corrupt and abusive Afghan government creates space for the Taliban to operate. While in charge, the Taliban promotes the growth of poppy, which acts like Taliban CERP funds (the Commander’s Emergency Response Program provides funds that Provincial Reconstruction Teams use to implement development projects quickly) and fuels the Afghan government’s corruption and other bad behaviors. In this situation, counter-insurgency is part of the solution, but not the whole solution.
Kilcullen also described some of the challenges facing USAID. Last year, for the first time, more than half of USAID spending went to conflict and post-conflict zones. Delivering aid in these types of places is difficult, of course, since people sometimes shoot aid workers. Furthermore, since USAID does little development work itself, the contractors it relies on can refuse to work in dangerous, but strategically important, areas. Insurgencies create special problems too: not only are people shooting at aid workers, aid is also competitive.
Kilcullen and others said much more to say on the future of war and U.S. strategy. Check back soon for part II.
(Photo: SAIS Review)
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Kilcullen is a bold liar. The Opium crop was the lowest under Taliban rule. And 30 years ago opium was insignifacant. It cam with the CIA in 1979. And Halliburton and all the other fellows are as corrupt as Karzai who is one them. This article is to trap midwesterners who think there is highway to Europe. The last days of the roman empire were made of such stuff.
May Gog help you if it´s not already too late.
And the famous Killcullen did not tell the auditorium that a huge chunk of all the money never reaches Afghanistan but falls pray to american corruption before. People like him may be called a Quack. A military Quack. And what Dr. Kilkullen was your role in East Timor? You call it counterinsurgency? I call them freedom fighters. East Timor was ethnic cleansing. At whom were you shooting there? A very dark chapter for the “Free West” And a book with the title “Global Insurgency” sounds like Orwell. Behind a round baby face, I can see the open fangs of a green mamba.
[...] This post follows up on our November 22 post on the “Insurgents and the Future of War” event held at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies on November 16. Counter-insurgency expert Dave Kilcullen gave the keynote. Shawn Brimley, Special Advisor to the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy; Max Manwaring, a professor of military strategy at the Army War College; Christopher Preble, Director of Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute; and Tom Donnelly, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, all participated in a discussion panel. Audio from the event is available here. [...]