Streit Talk

by Griffin W. Huschke

Government Illustration of bin Laden's Compound

Well, its over.  As you’ve heard by now, probably the largest and most expensive manhunt in U.S. history is at an end.  After a decade, the perpetrator of the terrorist attacks on September 11^th, Osama Bin Laden, is finally dead.

There isn’t a lot to be said about this man that isn’t already being spoken about elsewhere, and the details remain pretty sketchy. We’ll obviously be covering this for weeks to come, so let’s take a moment to think about the effects of bin Laden’s actions on the world community, and how the 17^th son of a Saudi construction magnate managed to have such an outsized effect on the way our world works.

In his own unfortunate way, bin Laden drastically changed the way security organizations, especially NATO, thought about possible threats.  Al Qaeda brought to light the threat of radical Islamic terrorism, and engendered massive shifts in force structure, command and control, and information sharing across the world as countries aligned to combat this “new” threat.   Al Qaeda also gave the Atlantic Alliance a new way to focus its resources on smaller scale units, like the Special Operations forces that ended up capturing bin Laden and development projects in areas hardest hit by the seemingly endless war in Afghanistan. NATO has grown into this role in fits and starts, and there’s plenty more work to be done, but Europe and the U.S. remain to be each other’s strongest strategic allies, and the Alliance continues to adapt.

Al Qaeda also changed the way NATO thought about itself.  9/11 solidified the notion that NATO would no be used to defend Western Europe in a pitched tank battle in the Fulda Gap, but would need to respond to new threats as infrastructure became more vulnerable and the world became increasingly globalized.  NATO’s new focus on a range of threats, including cyber attacks and WMD, are a total result of this post-9/11 soul-searching, as are NATO’s continued search for out-of-area “partners” like Japan and Australia.  The Alliance realized that global threats, like terrorism and cyber attacks, require global allies in all theaters.

We obviously all wish that NATO never had to make these changes in thinking; that bin Laden had renounced violence that would claim so many lives.  But now that we have had to live through a painful decade of war and recession, let’s hope those tasked with protecting us are more able than they were a decade ago.

Griffin W. Huschke is the Mayme and Herb Frank Fund Research Fellow at the Streit Council. Photo credit: TalkMediaNews (http://www.flickr.com/photos/talkradionews/5680432685/sizes/z/in/photostream/)

by Griffin W. Huschke

Marines patrol southern Shorshork, Helmand province

Griffin W. Huschke is the Mayme and Herb Frank Fund Research Fellow at the Streit Council. Photo Credit: United States Marine Corps Official Page (http://www.flickr.com/photos/marine_corps/4749549184/sizes/z/in/photostream/)

by Griffin W. Huschke and Molly Parker

As if the Taliban weren't enough to worry about . . .

We’ve been covering a lot of revolutions and international organizations lately, and while that’s interesting and timely, we feel it’s time for a little break from the heavy stuff (we’ll be back with multilateralism and munitions on Thursday).  While most of us were reading volumes on Libya during the recent civil war, this article appeared in Slate detailing the effect that poor food decisions are having on U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan and Iraq.  It seems that an abundance of “comfort food” from KFC, McDonalds and the like are making thousands of our fighting men and women overweight and unfit for duty.  And with the U.S. still “surging” in Afghanistan and beginning bombing runs on Tripoli, we need all the brave men and women we can get.

Here to discuss this issue with me is Molly Parker, a nutrition scholar who runs the organic food blog Delicious Eats and Treats, which seeks to educate urban youth about nutrition issues. From what I understand, she also became a new Aunt yesterday, so she may be a little sleep deprived after discovering how much of a racket those little bundles of joy can produce.

Griffin Huschke: Molly, I’ve worked with the military before, and I can honestly see why overseas bases have options for KFC, McDonalds and other quick serve restaurants.  These people are trapped on the moonscape of southern Afghanistan for the better part of a year, and are often pushed to the breaking point with near constant combat patrols and troubles at home.  After three days trudging around the desert, a Number 3 value meal with an extra-large coke is probably pretty good for morale.

Molly Parker: We Americans love our meat, sodas [pop], and convenience foods, and the comfort of having them readily available for the men and women overseas must be greatly valued in times of extreme emotional and physical stress. However, the fact of the matter is that these foods provide little to no healthy nourishment for the body. Too much meat raises cholesterol levels, too much soda [pop] raises blood sugar, and increases the risk of diabetes. Fast food and other convenience items are loaded with salt and preservatives, raising blood pressure and contributing to hypertension and metabolic syndrome. Consuming all of these foods on a regular basis can lead to serious health consequences for anybody; for a soldier’s body, it can lead to both health and service consequences.

It would be absurd to compare my sporadic stress eating with the kind of stress eating that goes on overseas, but I often try to have wholesome yet on-the-go types of food available for those occasions. Granola bars. Apples, nuts, yogurt cups. Studies have shown that bananas are the best snack to eat to fill you up and tide you over until the next meal. Having these types of foods available during non-meal hours would be a great source of nutrients, fill bellies, and boost energy levels.

Griffin Huschke: The other thing I was thinking about was the logistics of getting fast food to the front lines.  Green things tend to spoil, and they have a pretty byzantine path to make before they get to COP Middleofnowhere, Afghanistan.

Molly Parker: That’s true, and you’re probably not going to see fresh edamame in MRE’s any time soon.  It really is a shame that foods packed with preservatives are much easier to send to front line soldiers, as fresh food is much more likely to spoil or rot—that’s just the nature of real food. But frozen fruits and veggies keep very well, as does whole grain bread, and protein like chicken, yogurt, and milk. Most food doesn’t lose much nutritional value while it’s frozen, so if there’s a way to keep things cold on their way to our men and women in uniform, they should have options available to them.

Griffin Huschke: Front-line personnel need over 3,500 calories a day–that’s a lot of salad.  What should they be eating that gives them the fat and calories they need without sacrificing overall health?

Molly Parker: 3,500 kcals a days would indeed be a lot of salad–probably too much for a digestive tract to handle at any rate. Complex carbohydrates should make up most of the diet. These include oatmeal, whole-grain pasta, brown rice, potatoes, whole-grain bread and cereals, beans and lentils. Mono- and poly-unsaturated fat are also great ways to pack in extra kcals, as fat contains 9 calories per gram (protein and carbs contain 4 calories per gram). Fats should only make up 10-15% of the daily intake. Good sources of unsaturated fat include all types of nuts (especially almonds, peanuts, cashews, pistachios), peanut butter, oils that are liquid at room temperature (olive oil, veggie oil, etc), olives, fish (salmon and tuna), and avocado. Like all athletes on an intensive regimen, soldiers must eat for energy as well as for prevention of injury which can be caused by nutritional deficiencies. A variety of different colors of fruits and veggies will help to solidify a good balance of vitamins and minerals.

Griffin Huschke: Thanks for dropping knowledge with me here today, Molls, and congratulations again on your new Aunt-hood.

Griffin W. Huschke is the Mayme and Herb Frank Fund Research Fellow at the Streit Council, and Molly Parker is the primary editor for the food weblog Delicious Eats and Treats.  Photo Credit: Kenfagerdotcom (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kenfagerdotcom/4690095326/)

by Griffin W. Huschke

US Marines speak with villagers while on patrol

With all the excitement going on in the Maghreb in the last couple of days, you may have missed this Op-Ed from John Nagl and Nathanial Fick in the Times of New York the other day.  John Nagl is the President of the Center for a New American Security and author of the brilliant treatise on implementing counterinsurgency Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife (he also has an awesome “About the Author” picture.  It’s rare to see an author in an IBA, and not reclining with a cat in a rocking chair).  According to Nagl and his boy Fick, the United States and its NATO allies are making pretty good headway in Afghanistan, training competent new soldiers and extending security and governance to territory formerly controlled by the Taliban.

This assessment is a little out of the blue, even for devout NATO watchers, because its simply so hard to get a good understanding of ISAF gains in Afghanistan.  To get an idea of how frustrating reports from Afghanistan can be, let’s dial it back a couple of months: in October 2010, longtime Presidential überhistorian Bob Woodward compared Afghanistan to Vietnam, a mere fortnight before WaPo featured this article on the progress ISAF made in Afghanistan.  Something similar happened a little over a month later when U.S. Secretary of Defense Gates said progress in Afghanistan exceeded his expectations, less than a week before U.S. intelligence agencies leaked reports that the situation was actually worsening. The day after that, President Obama said the war was “on track” as he released a review of his Afghan strategy.  Even Nagl and Fick’s optimistic op-ed was quickly counteracted by accolades for Bing West’s new book The Wrong War, which paints a pretty desperate picture of the ISAF mission in Afghanistan.  You’d have to doublethink to undestand what’s going on.

Part of the reason it’s so tricky to gauge progress in Afghanistan is because counterinsurgency campaigns don’t really have tangible benchmarks.  The main tenets of COIN says to protect the population instead of killing the bad guys (which is—oddly–a semi-official military term for the Taliban), which is tough to measure.  In many instances, you can actually suffer more casualties because you’re putting your troops in less defensible positions among the people, as opposed to a strategic hill or mountain.  But hundreds of military scholars throughout the years, from the third Marques of Santa Cruz de Marcenado in 1726 to General Petreaus in 2011, have shown that COIN is the most effective way to defeat a domestic insurgency.

While implementing COIN may be the answer to rooting out the Taliban insurgency, it’s extremely difficult for the public to know if ISAF is using COIN effectively.  It makes sense that we’re unable to tell if there’s progress because of the nature of COIN, but it also necessitates a bit of logical gymnastics to understand that ISAF is making progress, but we just can’t tell that they’re making progress (unless Afghanistan is the Schrödinger’s cat of military campaigns, in that we’re winning and not winning at the same time). Until there’s a major victory against Taliban forces, or demonstrably more territory the IRoA can deliver services to, the public in NATO countries are going to be scratching their heads.

Griffin W. Huschke is the Mayme and Herb Frank Fund Research Fellow at the Streit Council.  Photo Credit: WBUR

by Griffin W. Huschke

NOTE: Last week we discussed how Hamid Karzai was playing the two-level game in calling for the removal of Western security contractors from Afghanistan (the directional distinction is important; the Government of Afghanistan relies on a small army of local security contractors, which is evidently less problematic) and promised more on the fallout from the President’s comments on Provincial Reconstruction Teams.  Well, the wait is finally over—find Part 2 below.

When President Karzai called for the “speedy” removal of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) last week, it made headlines because most people thought PRT’s were doing good work in Afghanistan (full disclosure: the author briefly worked to become a part of a Human Terrain Team, which has a somewhat related mandate and scope to that of PRTs).  What’s even more surprising, however, is this blog from Foreign Policy.com’s excellent AfPak Channel, which actually agrees with President Karzai “PRTs, in other words, are a mess, and they have been for a long time,” and argues for PRT responsibilities to be transitioned to officials in the Government of Afghanistan.

While PRT’s have a lot of room to improve, saying they’ve been a “mess” for a long time just isn’t true.  A number of different agencies have issued assessments of the PRTs almost every year since their inception, and mostly contain qualified praise like this 2005 USIP report: “PRTs provided a positive international presence in places where there otherwise would have been only combat forces conducting kinetic operations,” and a 2005 study by the Danish Department of Conflict and Security Studies entitled “PRTs in Afghanistan: Successful but not sufficient” (although this Save the Children brief dissents, it’s criticisms are more with the general military development projects than with the PRTs themselves).  This 2006 USAID report concludes that: “Provincial reconstruction teams (PRTs) have been an effective tool for stabilization in Afghanistan . . . [they] have helped create conditions that make increase political, social, and economic development possible,” and this 2008 independent survey by the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton finds that “PRT’s have become an integral part of peacekeeping and stability operations. . .”.  Each of the studies listed examines the failings of PRTs—and there many to chose from—but overall each concludes that PRTs have been a positive force in the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Regardless of this offending description of PRTs, the AfPak channel is certainly right about one thing—transitioning the PRTs over to capable Afghans is essential, but doing so may prove arduous.  The basic principles of counter-insurgency doctrine call for the Allied Country (or in this case, the countries that make up ISAF) to hand over basic governmental services, including development projects, to the Host Country (Afghanistan) as soon as security conditions allow.  But the US has been hanging into responsibility for the PRTs precisely because they have been successful, and turning the teams over to Afghans is a scary when even the President’s brother is a suspected drug lord.  So many segments of the Afghan government are corrupt that Afghan control may sap PRTs of their efficacy, taking away development projects from the most volatile parts of an already ravaged country.

In any event, ISAF doesn’t have much of a choice.  The current Government of Afghanistan isn’t optimal, but for better or worse, they’ll be taking control of their country in a couple of years.  PRTs are effective now, but figuring out how to keep them useful under Afghan leadership is going to be a challenge as the ISAF mission winds down.  How this will happen—and even if this will happen—is anyone’s guess.  As Haitians—who know a thing or two about difficulties—and the recently anointed Arcade Fire would say, “mountains beyond mountains.”

Griffin W. Huschke is the Mayme and Herb Frank Fund Research Fellow at the Streit Council.  Photo Credit: US Army Korea – IMCOM

by Griffin W. Huschke

The mid-2000’s were a much different time.  It was a simpler, kinder world that existed well before the advent of modern vices such as iPads, Kardashians, and the ultimate evil known as Justin Bieber’s autobiographical 3D film.  It was an innocent time, unmarred by modern trappings, when people weren’t afraid to trust each other.  Like, say, when the U.S. trusted Afghan President Hamid Karzai to run an effective, democratic, government and generally not say bizarre things.

Well, the world has changed since those lost halcyon days, but Karzai’s increasingly erratic comments can sometimes make a sort of sense.  At the Munich Security Conference on Sunday, President Karzai called for Western security contractors to leave Afghanistan, even though it would probably make is country less safe, and cost more American and Afghan lives overall. See, many interactions between state officials can be characterized by the “logic of the two level game”, where the public puts constraints on the choices of international leaders.  The recently leaked documents showing the proposed Palestinian compromise with Israel is a good example—even though Palestinian negotiators were willing to cede portions of East Jerusalem, negotiators knew the Palestinian public would never accept such a deal, and didn’t take the offer seriously.

Afghan public opinion was likely driving the President’s comments on Sunday.  The Afghan people hate Western security firms, and a recent incident where contractors drove over over a car, killing six unarmed civilians, sparked a riot in the streets of Kabul.  There’s also the findings that security contractors actually paid the Taliban and local warlords because they didn’t properly vet the people they were doing business with.  Then there’re the suspicions of murder.  Generally, security contractors have a reputation for acting outside the law, closing streets on a whim, and acting like all-around thugs.  And don’t think that Afghans aren’t painfully cognizant of the Blackwater (now Xe) contractors who got into a firefight with suspiciously unseen “insurgents” in Baghdad that killed either 14 or 17 civilians (depending on who you ask) and wounded 20. If that incident would have happened in Boston, it would have been called a massacre.  About three times over.

So, it actually makes a good deal of sense with President Karzai uses his forum at Sunday’s  Munich Security Conference to call for Western security firms to get out of his country and stop running people over, even though he knows it’s pretty unlikely.  The United States employs 19,000 private security guards in Afghanistan, and its difficult to foresee how the U.S. military can keep doing its job without them.  Karzai still isn’t going to win any popularity contests in Helmand province, but his overblown demands are masking some valid concerns about the conduct of private security firms.

But don’t worry: Hamid Karzai is still going to say some baffling stuff.   In the main thrust of his speech, President Karzai put the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) on notice, calling for their “speedy” withdrawal from the country.  PRTs have enacted small-scale development projects all over Afghanistan since 2002, including the now-infamous provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, and Uruzgan (full disclosure: the author briefly worked to become a part of a Human Terrain Team, which has a somewhat related mandate and scope).  There are currently 26 teams operating down range comprised personnel of many different ISAF nations.  While some PRTs have met with mixed results, and there is certainly great room for improvement, the majority of studies have found that PRTs are a positive force in Afghanistan.  People were so dumbfounded by Karzai’s statements that they repeatedly gave him a second shot to interact with reality, asking him if he actually meant that he wanted to remove the Provincial Reconstruction Teams.  Repeatedly, he answered yes.

But, wait, then why is Foreign Policy’s extraordinary blog The AfPak Channel agreeing with this?  Check back Tuesday, when Streit Talk’s coverage of the MSC continues with “Part 2: The Chorus of the Bloggers”.

Griffin W. Huschke is the Mayme and Herb Frank Fund Research Fellow at the Streit Council.  Photo Credit:ISAFMedia