Afghanistan Crossroads

Rethinking Afghanistan makes sense. Eight years since the war and no end in sight. President Obama and Ambassador Holbrooke get it right when they address Afghanistan and Pakistan with a common strategy. Pakistan still meddles in Afghanistan's internal affairs, and the Taliban live on both sides of the (much lamented about artificial) border between both countries. The situation on the ground in Afghanistan is not about peacekeeping - it is about peace enforcement at best, it is a war still not won - eight years later. This disaster should not surprise anybody. With Americans pulling out after the initial defeat of the Taliban in 2001, and NATO partners moving in hesitantly to 'safeguard' nothing but Kabul and not the rest of the huge country, we are now harvesting the fruits of our neglect: widespread lawlessness, absence of the rule of law, lack of reconstruction and development, no citizen safety. This was, it has to be said, foreseeable. And while America disengaged early (also by transferring sovereignty too soon), European allies and NATO failed miserably in the absence of adequate US leadership and American willingness to 'beef up' ISAF forces way beyond Kabul from the get-go. NATO failure to stabilize Afghanistan is not a question anymore. The Germans who were in charge of police training did not send enough trainers, the Italians who were in charge of building the judiciary, did not deliver, the British failed in the fight against the opium trade - the list goes on an on. So, what is the remedy? Quite frankly, I believe that most of the options for a new strategy hatched by the current Administration risk being 'too little, too late' anyway. According to William Zartman, there are moments when a conflict is 'ripe' for intervention. Why shouldn't there be moments of ripeness with regard to peace-building?! And, peace- or nation-building is what we are dealing with. According to the Carnegie Commission for Preventing Deadly Conflict in a report issued 1997, there are three key goals following war and violent conflict: first, to provide security; second to address the well-being of citizens; third, to deliver on justice (and the rule of law). Robert Orr in the early 2000s added a fourth goal, that of governance. None of the four goals have been addressed sufficiently. Even the 'governance' issue is of great concern given claims of corruption, inefficiency and election fraud against the Karzai government. The focus of the previous Administration to merely contain the Taliban and AlQaeda in Afghanistan, while relying on the use of heavy equipment and drones, has worsened the situation for the population in Afghanistan, leaving the citizens of that country baffled at why 'the West' would not be more committed and resolved, not just to assist them to rebuild their country, but to protect them from attacks. So what will happen now? Is it too late for a strategy to 'win the hearts and minds of the people'? A war 'for the people of Afghanistan'? On the other hand, a strategy that is based primarily on the pursuit of terrorists, might sell at home, according the 'realist' notion: "we need to protect the US homeland, therefore we need to stay in Afghanistan: this is in our national interest"; such a strategy might be a recipe for failure because it would not embrace a strategy that has the national interest of Afghanistan in mind, too. The only way the war and peace will be won and sustained in the long run, is if the people of Afghanistan see that victory will be theirs as well. A strategy based on 'keeping America safe at home' by 'pursuing terrorists abroad' without nation-building will be lose-lose. A few days ago, I heard Senator, Kay Bailey-Hutchison from Texas call for more NATO support. Is that the grand American strategy to win the war, more of the same that brought us into the current dilemma of a continuously failing state in the first place? Putting more of the very responsibility that America did not want to have in 2001 / 2002 (also because of its emerging focus on Iraq) on allies that lack the willingness, capabilities and 'teeth' to enforce the peace in all of Afghanistan? More of the same strategy to let the Europeans - new and old - the Canadians and Australians (I guess, this would be 'NATO plus') - clean up because America does not want to do nation-building given its costs, or out of principle and ideology (as was the case with the previous administration)? America needs to lead, not to dictate, as Leslie Gelb argues in Power Rules (2009). If we continue to fight wars (against terrorism, or better, religious totalitarianism) based on a 'win-lose' strategy, we will continue to lose; 'win-lose' standing for a policy approach: we, the US and our allies may gain in national security; however, you, people of Afghanistan may lose because we are not willing to do the hard work to lay the foundations for lasting peace and stability with you; this work being called peace- and nation-building. The tough job was done before. Or would anybody deny that the Marshall Plan with its economic focus on citizen well-being and the creation of NATO and EU, which enhanced security among European nations, in the Euro-Atlantic area, as well as globally, was not about peace- and nation-building? There probably never was a bigger nation and peace-building project in human history than the Marshall Plan. So, if Vietnam is the 'threat scenario', America's nation-building efforts in the American zone in occupied Germany, in the three zones of West Germany and in Western Europe following World War II would be the success story to base (not one's hope), but one's policy analysis on with regard to what has worked in the past when trying to win the hearts and minds of people and therefore, ultimately, the larger struggle of building lasting peace and stability.

Publication of children's book by author Michaela Hertkorn, titled "Little Cloud Upset"

"The Little Cloud Upset“ is a children’s picture book that will introduce preschoolers and young children to aspects of international relations and global affairs. Issues, such as human rights, the environment, refugee situations, war and peace are discussed and illustrated in an age-appropriate way. The central character is a little cloud that travels, as a neutral observer, across the globe observing all sorts of global challenges. The cloud flies across melting ice caps in the polar region, watches children play in refugee camps and remembers witnessing the fall of the Berlin Wall twenty years ago, an event that fundamentally changed this world and drew millions of people around the globe closer together. And though the book highlights problematic issues, it emphasizes the importance of cooperation and that through individual actions we can change a lot for the better.

Book excerpt:

“…The Little Cloud remembers how twenty years ago, in 1989, she had visited the European city of Berlin. Back then, Berlin was still divided into two parts, West- and East Berlin. Both sides had very different political systems, different leadership, different economies, and they did not like each other. There was much tension, and people in East Berlin could not travel to the West. A huge Wall divided both populations for almost three decades.

After a stormy November night over the Baltic Sea, the Little Cloud had arrived atop Alexanderplatz in East Berlin, holding on to a huge television tower…”

(Michaela C. Hertkorn, Little Cloud Upset)

To pre-order, please click here 

'Manhattan View' - a poem

Theres millions of windows,
And roofs look like stairs,
Rising into
A still endless sky.

The sidewalks are cold, massive
And grey, grey, grey.
So are the trees in the park -
It's still winter.

People in the streets way down below,
Are tiny, colorful
Dots, buzzing around,
Finding their way
In the labyrinth of
Endless glass and steel.

From behind a distant window
It seems
The midday sun of early March
Is warming up
The Earth in
Bryant Park!

(Michaela, 'Writing Travel Books' class, NYU, March 2007)

 (Flying high, Hertkorn M. 2001)

Also an American Legacy in Iraq: a commentary and a review

The scene is dark. All the spectators can hear is the soft spoken voice of a scared man reflecting on hopes crashed following American invasion in Iraq in 2003. ‘Betrayed’ a play by George Packer, author of the ‘Assassin’s Gate’ and directed by Pippin Parker tells the story of three young Iraqis “who loved America too much”. When the lights go on, we can see his figure: how the sharp lines in a tired face do not match up with the warmth of the voice! It is a Friday evening at ‘Culture Project’, a tiny, charming theatre on Mercer Street in SoHo. I had planned to see the play ever since reading ‘Imperial Life in the Emerald City’, an insider’s story told by Washington Post journalist Rajiv Chandrasekaran. “Death to Saddam, long live the American liberators!” an actor portraying a Sunni Iraqi in Western clothes yells while tearing apart a poster of the former Iraqi dictator. The scene is vivid. It reminded me of images we had seen in Eastern Germany and other Eastern European countries once communism fell. “Death to Ceausescu”, the Romanian people in late 1989 demanded liberation both, from a brutal tyrant and his hardliner interpretation of socialism. The early 1990s also saw the international community punish Saddam Hussein for having invaded oil-rich Kuwait; twelve years later, America decided to finish off Hussein himself by toppling his regime. Chandrasekaran’s book highlights the enormity of betrayal of American values that followed in the aftermath of the war in 2003. High hopes by Iraqi civilians for a speedy process of economic, political and social peace-building efforts spearheaded by Americans did not materialize. It is obvious that the Administration had not planned how to improve or safeguard the well-being of Iraqi civilians. ‘Citizen safety’ was not a major concern. Children being able to go to school – a prerequisite for stability in any society – has remained a key failure of America’s legacy in post-Saddam Iraq.

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The Challenge of Post-War Stabilization: More Questions than Answers for the NATO-EU Framework

The Challenge of Post-War Stabilization: More Questions than Answers for the NATO-EU Framework

The comment below was published by the Duesseldorf Institute for Foreign and Security Policy (DIAS), http://www.dias-online.org/

The following comments regarding the so-called ‘EU-NATO framework’ and its increasing role in post-conflict peace- and nation-building and stabilization refers to a project, which I conduct as associate researcher at the Foundation for Post-Conflict Development in New York (http://www.postconflictdev.org/). The focus of my research at the Foundation is three-fold. First, it analyzes Germany’s role and player within the ‘framework of increasing out-of-area peacekeeping or peace-building missions, initiated or supported by either the North Atlantic Organization or the European Union, or both.

Some of the questions concern the characteristics of contemporary German foreign and security policy. Are there, and if yes, what are the specific limitations for German contributions to peacekeeping, such as in Afghanistan? I also ask the question, whether and to which extent, reunified Germany might benefit from its own historic experience with a successful post-World War II reconstruction process; and how we can contrast this success story with the disastrously flawed policy of insufficient or non-existent post-war planning for Iraq, plus the enormous security challenges NATO is still facing in Afghanistan where the Germans have had for a considerable time the second largest contingent among NATO allies. What might be the lessons the international community could have drawn or still should be drawing from the ‘German case’ following World War II with regard to contemporary cases of reconstruction and stabilization?

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