May 18, 2012

USIP's experts on Afghanistan provide a preview of the key issues at the NATO summit in Chicago.

Andrew Wilder, USIP’s director of Afghanistan and Pakistan programs, discusses the major themes expected to come out of the summit.

At the 2010 NATO summit in Lisbon, the Afghan government and NATO member states agreed to transition lead responsibility for security to the Afghan National Security Forces by 2014, a process that is now well underway. The Chicago NATO summit will reaffirm the commitment of member states to this process, but will also provide an opportunity to emphasize that the drawdown of international forces does not mean that the U.S. and its NATO allies are abandoning Afghanistan.

In particular, NATO members will commit to providing substantial financial resources to pay for the lion’s share of the estimated $4 billion per year that it will cost to sustain the Afghan National Security Forces in the short to medium-term after 2014.

Recent Afghan history provides strong evidence of the importance of these financial commitments: the Soviet-backed regime of President Najibullah in the late 1980s and early 1990s did not collapse when Soviet forces withdrew, but occurred when the funds to support the Najibullah regime dried up following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The withdrawal of most international forces is generating a great deal of concern amongst Afghans, who fear it could lead to a return to the civil war and anarchy of the 1990s.

The Chicago NATO summit, the Strategic Partnership Agreement signed by President Obama and President Karzai in Kabul on May 1st, and similar strategic partnership agreements signed by several other NATO members with the government of Afghanistan, should all play an important role in signaling to the government, the Afghan public and the Taliban, as well as to Afghanistan’s neighbors, that the U.S. and its NATO allies are not walking away from Afghanistan.

While the focus of the NATO summit will be on the ongoing security transition in Afghanistan, and how to support the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) in the post-2014 period, the Chicago summit should also be used as an opportunity to highlight the critical importance of successful political and economic transitions in Afghanistan. The participation of Pakistan’s President Zardari, along with President Karzai and President Obama, will provide an opportunity to breathe some life into a dormant peace process, and to agree on concrete ways forward to promote a durable and inclusive peace settlement in Afghanistan. President Karzai and the NATO participants should also use Chicago as an opportunity to highlight the importance of a peaceful and democratic transfer of political power following credible elections in 2014 as required by the Afghan constitution.

Finally, the Chicago summit should also acknowledge that it is not just the ANSF that will require ongoing financial support, but also the civilian sectors. Chicago can help pave the way for a successful Tokyo development conference in July at which international donors will need to commit to supporting Afghanistan’s ongoing economic and social development for the foreseeable future, and President Karzai and his government will need to commit to governing in a more effective and accountable manner, and to support free and fair elections in 2014. Well-resourced Afghan security forces, but with few government resources to provide basic social services, and an illegitimate government if there is a highly flawed or no elections, would not be a recipe for success in Afghanistan.

William Byrd, a development economist and senior expert in residence at USIP, recently wrote about future funding of Afghanistan’s security forces. He discusses how countries should pay for the security sector costs, given the economic constraints under which all NATO members are operating.

A central topic of the Chicago NATO Summit is funding for Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) until and beyond 2014.  Based on current targets and projections, the longer-term "sustaining cost" of ANSF is projected to be just over $4 billion per year, which is a great deal of money for a security sector assistance program – but will be far, far less than the costs the international community is currently incurring for international troops in Afghanistan, which have been exceeding $100 billion per year. 

Although the Afghan government has been making effective efforts to mobilize domestic revenue and is expected to contribute around half a billion dollars a year toward security sector costs (a number which can increase gradually over time as Afghanistan’s revenues grow), the bulk of the cost of ANSF will have to be covered by the international community for the foreseeable future, unless and until the costs get greatly reduced (for example if there is a peace settlement that ends the current insurgency). 

It is really important to match the ANSF size and cost with the funding that will be available; the worst thing to do would be to create large, well-trained and well-equipped security forces whose salaries and other costs cannot be paid for over the medium-term.  That would be a recipe for disaster, as demonstrated by other countries such as Somalia - where cut-off of aid that had been funding its security forces precipitated a breakdown of the state and fueled that country's civil war. 

While mobilizing funding, it is equally important to set clear progress measured against explicit benchmarks that the Afghan government and ANSF should achieve as part of the partnership under which they receive longer-term security sector funding from the international community.

While Afghan security sector funding needs have to be addressed, this cannot happen at the expense of high-priority civilian and development expenditures.  Adequately funding security, while squeezing out other critical expenditures, would adversely affect public services, Afghanistan's transition and longer-term development prospects.  This is an important linkage between the NATO summit and the Tokyo development meeting in July, and the numbers on both security side and civilian side need to add up.  

Funding understandably will be the focus of much attention at Chicago, but it is important that the non-financial issues related to ANSF be kept front-and-center.  What are the strategic national security objectives for Afghanistan, and how do they link to the strategy for developing ANSF?  What is being bought with the large resources devoted to ANSF?  Will ANSF be able to carry out leadership and execution responsibilities for counterinsurgency as the combat role of international forces is phased out (assuming COIN remains the primary focus)?  Will the internal cohesion and command and control of the ANSF hold together as the international military presence declines?  Will the civil authorities maintain effective oversight of ANSF, a key ingredient in successful transitions in other countries?  What continuing logistical support from international forces will the ANSF require to function effectively?

Scott Smith, deputy director of USIP’s Afghanistan program, discusses the significance of the 2014 elections in Afghanistan, and what are the most critical issues as far as the international community should be concerned regarding electoral process.

It is not at all too early to begin thinking about elections. Luckily, on the technical level, there has been a lot of planning going on already, and of course in the political arena a number of candidates, parties, coalitions, and alliances have begun to organize themselves with a view to contesting the election.  These are all positive signs.

It’s important to note that the Afghan Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) has gained a lot of capacity over the past years. I’ve just returned from a visit to Kabul and am impressed with where things stand right now. The IEC is taking the lead in planning, and is receiving support from the United Nations and others.

There are two big challenges, though, that have to be met and that will test both the IEC’s capacity and the political will to hold a credible election. The first is to deal with the voter registry. Despite the fact that millions of Afghans have been registered to vote in at least four separate registration operations over the past decade, there is still no unified voter database. That means that voters can’t be linked to polling stations and multiple registrants can’t be identified and eliminated. The second obstacle is the need to amend and improve the electoral legislation. This process has begun, led by the IEC, working with the parliament. It is particularly important that the electoral legislation governing the 2014 (presidential) and 2015 (legislative) elections be adopted by the parliament. Previous electoral legislation was adopted by presidential decree, in opposition to the parliament, and this undermined confidence in the process. Consensus by all parties on the rules of the game is essential to ensure that the next round of elections will be a bridge to a more stable political future, rather than a source of renewed conflict.

The international community has a role to play in overcoming these obstacles. But it is important that we focus on the technical dimensions, rather than appearing to be interfering in the politics of the election.

http://www.usip.org/experts/shahmahmood-miakhelwww.usip.org/experts/shahmahmood-miakhel, the director of USIP’s Afghanistan office in Kabul, previews how the NATO summit will play out in Afghanistan and what many Afghans will be hoping to happen in Chicago.   

The Afghan media extensively talk about the Chicago conference because it is very important for the Afghans, the country and region -- as well as for international community to have stability beyond 2014.  The Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) meets the basic goals in terms of quantity, but in term of quality, it needs more improvement in order to face the overall security challenges in Afghanistan. Such progress will not be possible without a firm commitment by international community -- especially the U.S. – that it will continue to provide financial support for the ANSF beyond 2014.

If the summit attendees make a firm commitment to support the ANSF and not leave Afghanistan after 2014, it will gain the confidence of the Afghan people and Afghanistan’s security forces. This would also send a strong signal to the Taliban and other armed insurgents to pursue peace talks. At the same time, the international community shouldn’t just focus on the security transition; the political and economic transitions will have a major impact on promoting long-term stability in Afghanistan. For instance, if the elections in 2014 are derailed for one reason or another, the country may become politically unstable, thereby possibly creating a bigger security challenge beyond the ANSF’s capability and capacity to control.

After more than a decade of international involvement, the key to success depends on a peaceful political transition in 2014.  If this can happen peacefully and legitimately, it will represent a huge achievement for the Afghans – enabling President Karzai to leave behind a positive legacy and the international community to ultimately leave a stable Afghanistan.

Moeed Yusuf, USIP’s South Asia adviser, examines why Pakistan’s president is attending the NATO summit, and its significance.

The Pakistani President will arrive in Chicago today to participate in the NATO summit. Pakistan was an extremely late, yet welcome, inclusion in the list of attendees for this all-important moot. NATO had made the invitation to Pakistan contingent on Islamabad reopening the NATO supply route that flows through its territory. The actual opening is still pending but Pakistan has said it will resume supply transport soon.

Pakistan's inclusion is significant for at least four reasons.

First, Pakistan remains the single most critical regional player in terms of holding influence over a settlement in Afghanistan. While it is not clear that Pakistan can force the Afghan insurgent groups on its territory to sincerely participate in a negotiation process, leaving Pakistan out could be the kiss of death for any hope of achieving this. Pakistan was absent - it boycotted the meeting even though it was invited - from the previous major international meeting on Afghanistan - "Bonn-II" - and consequently much of the decisions in terms of regional cooperation were largely meaningless. Pakistan could ill afford a repeat in terms of not showing up and letting the world ponder Afghanistan's future without its input; friends of Afghanistan would also not have benefited from leaving Pakistan out of such conversations.

Second, the summit will provide an opportunity for a trilateral meeting between Pakistani, Afghan, and American leaders. Given that this trilateral mechanism is the only real institutional mechanism available to these "core" countries to forge a consensus on the way forward on Afghanistan, the more opportunities they get to discuss issues candidly in this format, the better. Also, the mechanism has recently been used as the basis for creating sub-groups focused specifically on outreach to the Taliban (reconciliation efforts) and Chicago will provide an opportunity to discuss this initiative further.

Third, Pakistan's presence marks a welcome breakthrough in the six-month long impasse in Pak-U.S. bilateral ties. Ever since the November 2011 NATO air strike at Salala that killed 24 Pakistani security personnel, the relationship had been in cold storage. Precious time was being lost and the U.S. position on Pakistan was hardening -- this was courtesy of the delay in the parliamentary review process, The prolonged blockage of the NATO supply routes, and a string of attacks in Kabul during this period that were traced back to the Haqqani network, by the day. While both sides are fully cognizant that a total rupture in ties would be detrimental to their respective interests and to Afghanistan, these kind of prolonged breakdowns risk allowing hardliners on both sides to hijack narratives and force the political leaderships to pander to these. One of these lulls in relations could very well cross a red line for either side, and inadvertently lead to an permanent break.

Finally, Pakistan's decision to come to Chicago says something about Islamabad's own realization that it cannot afford to isolate itself from NATO countries and their role in Afghanistan. It seems to have learnt its own lesson from Bonn-II, i.e. a no-show only gives the others a chance to critique one's position with no one to defend it. You come across as a country not interested in peace in Afghanistan. Moreover, Pakistan's decision to participate also proves that the Pakistani government is ultimately willing to make the tough political choices at home (e.g. reopening NATO routes, compromising on zero tolerance on drones, etc) in order to retain its role in global discussions on Afghanistan. The alternative could well be Pakistan forcing the world's hand into isolating it.

To be sure, there isn't much one should expect to come out of the Chicago moot for or from Pakistan. But its mere presence is a victory; its absence would have been anything but that.