Book Review - When More is Less

When More Is Less – Book Review

Afghanistan has not denounced war. After acquiring billions of dollars in funds by the international community for peace-building purposes, Afghanistan accords itself with the right to remain convulsed in political corruption and internal violence. The self-righteous aid organizations, imposing democratic rules and liberal treaties, hold no legitimacy in the plurality of Afghani citizens. The stratagem of long standing US army threatens the foundation of Afghani statism. These are just some of the many accusations of Astri Suhrke regarding the failed peace-building, International Project for Afghanistan in her book, When more is less.  Suhrke describes Afghanistan’s disconcerting conflicts, which continue to weaken the state and are ultimately responsible for its collapse, as a combination of tumultuous anomic disaster and overrated humanitarian hype. This essay examines Suhrke’s critical perspective on peace-building in post 2001 Afghanistan. It analyses clearly that the collapse and failure of Afghani statehood is contingent on the generic distress and inevitable contradictions of the principles and policies employed by the US to achieve peace and simultaneously fight a war. It further establishes intrusive tensions, a tug-a-war of control and ownership with dependence and sustainability paradox. These unresolved anomalies unresolved, permanently risked Afghanistan’s capacity to ever function as a as a state.

The selections of issues daunting Afghan statism, as outlined by Suhrke are numerous. The one which ranks highest as a matter of concern is the ostensible peace-building agenda concealing war against terrorism.  Peace-building project, coined “Operation Enduring Freedom” by the US military is the reason for Afghan failed state; establishing liberal political order directly on the prospect of strategically eliminating an internal terrorist network (p.5), increased the likelihood of insecurity and loss of monopoly over violence. According to Suhrke, the world’s most powerful state, the US designed the peace-building ideology to dominate the world system (p.8). It was a tool to “restore order in failed states in crisis situation that otherwise would threaten the international hierarchy of power” (p. 8). Here, it is important to stress the sharp emphasis on American interests in the peace-building project, as it created a catastrophic divided between the policies it applied to achieve peace and the subsequent insecurities that followed in Afghanistan. US intervened in Afghanistan to deliver peace via war. It replaced the Afghan conventions with its national goals and values in hopes to buffer or manipulate its influence through military force and international funds.  From the very onset, the peace-building project constituted an attempt to indirectly control Afghanistan, to become partners in of its sovereignty and thereby, owners of the country. The Operation reeked of unequal power distribution, greed and corruption.

Under the guidance of Francis Fukuyama’s manual on state-building, which suggested that public administrations could be reformed through capital, US navigated the war against terrorism with money (p.118).   Instead of bolstering Al Qaeda and Taliban, the US paid their leaders to prevent attacks against US imposed political structure. US coalition with the terrorists empowered not eliminated the warlords (p.14), “Washington’s ambitions may be to create order and benevolence…but reliance on the militia instead created more disorder (p.15).” This flawed and misguided US policy thus gave credence to war criminals to continue their atrocities without charge. Strongmen and not good governance delivered night raids and detentions to civilians not protection and securities (p.17).  The outcome of this self-defeating decision was massive human rights’ abuses with loss of monopoly over violence. The local citizenry, excluded from the Bonn Agreement, was forced to defend itself by taking up arms thus engendering more insurgency and ineffectiveness of liberal institutions. The peace-building operation was indeed a failure; it not only ruined the existing frugal state apparatus, physical trauma but also starved the people of basic necessities like food, health, education and shelter (p.122).

According to Suhrke, the International Project received a second chance in 2004 after the Madrid bombing. “The event drove home the…growing threat of international terrorism and reinforced the original rationale for regime change in Afghanistan (p.122).” The event uplifted funding to $28.5 billion in aid to support the state-building agenda (p.123). The massive administration of aid conferred corruption, loss of accountability and over dependence. The reign of aid undermined adherence to moral principles as it awarded state contracts without scrutiny, many times to warlords and local rulers. The warlords abused the donations to fund their personal rivalries with neighbouring strongmen (p.129), deteriorating attempts to sustain security. Moreover, family members of politicians had power to bid for contracts, they were granted large sums of money without qualification. The Defense Minister’s son, Hamed Wardak received money to establish private security company despite government regulations against him which made ineligible for the contract (p.135). Similarly, the brother of a district governor, Ahmed Wali Khan (p.136) enjoyed numerous construction contracts by leasing land, enabling him to maximize his profit and enrich his family. “The salary scale introduced merit based appointments” (p.130), although replaced the patronage system, it continued to over staff and grossly overpay employees. “By early 2010 donors paid an estimated $45 million a year in salary support to some 6,600 Afghan officials in various ministries and government agencies (p.128).” Without appropriate checks and balances, the money was channeled without fiduciary accountability. “USAID was able to conduct on site monitoring of only 14 of 40 projects in 2009 leaving it uncertain how the aid money was being used and by whom (p.134).” The extent of money mismanagement and the magnitude of corruption can be estimated by Zia Massoud, one of the two Vice Presidents of Afghanistan fleeing the country with $52 million cash (p.131).

The poorly coordinated aid created a political backlash; accountability, legitimacy and sustainability depravation. Politicians and civil servants lacked account giving relationship with local citizenry. They were working on rent for aid organizations and thus only answerable to them. Suhrke explains that rentier states “inhibit…effective administrations (p.120),” their rulers have no incentives to bargain with their population to procure taxes; they work for rent so their bureaucracies are sustained by bribery, extortion and manipulation. It stunted any possibility of creating a liberal cultural or democratic growth. For example, “Minister of Finance and Minister of reconstruction….were technocrats who spoke the language of the donors and had gained their trust (p.124) hence the interest of international agencies working within Afghanistan overshadowed the needs of the suffering Afghani people, who discredited all state-building reforms as an extension of war hence any imperatives of aid were received with hostility and increased violence. In any case, the reforms were short-lived, as the aid organizations and technocrats were unable to afford billions of fresh capital and patience, Afghanistan quickly reverted back to a macro mafia-state, ‘a drug economy run by recalcitrant warlords (p.123).’

                                                                                                                       

            To summarize, failed states like Afghanistan, cannot be rebuild by foreign capital and coercion. Accumulation of capital and centralization of control may be the ‘nuts and bolts’ of state-building; however they cannot be supplied from outside (p.119). This feat of social engineering must be instituted locally. Not that the international efforts in mobilizing elections or monitoring human rights violations and aiding reconstruction projects in Afghanistan was unappreciated, regrettably the altruistic and good intended foreign presence and donations weakened internal legitimacy, corrupted local administrations and escalated social dependency. Prior to the war on terrorism, Afghanistan’s thirty years of history and warfare, disentangled the central government and dichotomized the citizenry in numerous tribal and sectarian factions. Hence, the peace-building operation in a hyper violent culture was counterproductive. The state-building campaign failed because the unwillingness of the local population to first eradicate racial and religious incongruences from within their factions. Their vested interests were also counterproductive to the development efforts of the international community. In their race to grab aid contracts and earn political positions for personal benefits, they weakened the public institutions that could have provided them national security and basic public services in the long run.

Bibliography

Suhrke, Astri. When more is less: the international project in Afghanistan. New York: Columbia University Press, 2011.