Our Afghanistan strategy – play it by ear

Official papers reveal our new strategy – or lack of it – for military involvement, civilian aid and international diplomacy in war-torn Afghanistan

New Zealand’s eight year engagement in Afghanistan has lacked a national objective to guide decision-making, according to the Afghanistan Reference Group of officials from government agencies with direct involvement in Afghanistan.

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully and Defence Minister Wayne Mapp agree. In an overview of the ARG report, they say:

“Our engagement has expanded piecemeal in response to circumstances, rather than within a time-bound strategy which had clear objectives.”

Official papers on the ARG review and subsequent Cabinet decisions have just been obtained in response to an Official Information Act request.

They show that key government agencies involved in providing military, security, and development assistance in Afghanistan are still calling for “a national objective as the basis of an overarching strategy” to coordinate their efforts. Their own effort to produce one will not set the Thames on fire.

“The Government of Afghanistan is supported to assume early responsibility for security in Bamyan province within the framework of the new international community emphasis on facilitating development and governance in line with the Afghanistan National Development Strategy and in close consultation with key partners.”

However, the ARG review identifies significant deficiencies in New Zealand’s current approach to its roles in Afghanistan – defeating Al Qaeda, creating Afghan self-reliance in governance, and promoting economic development and security at central government, provincial and district levels.

Maintaining the military Provincial Reconstruction Team in Bamyan along with other sustained offshore commitments in Timor Leste and Solomon Islands has stretched New Zealand’s small defence force and reduced its capacity to train, refresh and re-equip itself. The ARG review says:

“The PRT commitment has been reviewed and reconfirmed on an annual basis but on each occasion questions have been raised about the length of time a small defence force can sustain it alongside other demanding deployments. This remains a live issue.”

“New Zealand interests would be better served by aligning our Afghanistan commitment with the revised international strategy… [with] a phased transition to exit from the PRT as responsibility is transferred to Afghan security force…  and boosting New Zealand’s contributions to development, including through the establishment of a New Zealand civilian presence in-country to improve facilitation of all activities.”

The response from Cabinet has been to direct officials to develop a road map for exiting the PRT in the medium term, or up to five years. However, ministers also want options developed for “smaller, more focused military contributions beyond the PRT commitment.”

According to the ARG, a separate review of the NZAID development programme finds that:

“The PRT was not expert in development. It required, and had received, guidance from NZAID, but this had not been sufficient to meet the needs. Opportunities were being missed to collect and share information about assistance from a variety of sources being channeled through the PRT and to coordinate and improve the coherence of its delivery.”

Ministers rejected the ARG’s recommendation to place the Bamyan PRT under civilian leadership during the transition to its exit. Cabinet approved another option instead: the appointment of a civilian development adviser to the team who “might serve concurrently as the PRT’s civilian co-leader.”

The new development adviser will have a bigger budget to draw on. For the past three years, New Zealand development aid to Afghanistan has totaled $15 million. For the next three, it will be boosted to $29 million. Ministers want more money directed to agricultural and horticultural development,

Another significant deficiency identified by the review resulted from the initial decision to maintain diplomatic relations with Afghanistan via the New Zealand Embassy in Iran, “for reasons of cost, operating difficulty, and relative priority.” The review report states:

“In recent times, this has not been as effective as we would like as a vehicle for monitoring the situation in Afghanistan, for protecting and promoting New Zealand interests, or for influence on Afghan or international agencies or coalition partners. Communications between Tehran and Kabul are unreliable and poor quality and, for various reasons outside the Embassy’s control, including security concerns, visits from Tehran have not been possible as frequently as in the past.”

Cabinet has approved the appointment of an Ambassador to be stationed in Kabul for a finite term to be determined as the PRT exit strategy is implemented. The Ambassador is be co-located in the embassy of another nation [possibly Britain] to save costs.

All this, of course, is predicated on a number of suppositions. Such as, that President Obama can gain support for implementing the new US surge to destroy any bases for international terrorism remaining in Afghanistan; that Hamid Karzai can rescue some semblance of legitimacy from the country’s corruption-riddled presidential election; and that the planned United Nations summit in Kabul early next year maintains the current thrust of international assistance to build Afghan self-reliance.

Somehow, I’m still missing that simple, compelling statement of a New Zealand national objective that justifies remaining entangled in Afghanistan.