Director's Comments: Your efforts continue to make a difference preparing units, Soldiers, and leaders

Having been to both theaters, from my experience as a Infantry Company Commander in Afghanistan one of my biggest weapons in my kit bag was my CERP funds.  During my year in Urzghan Province from Apr 04- Mar 05 I spent more than $670,000 on multiple projects in my AO.  Small projects from drinking wells and irrigation wells, speakers for mosques, to bridges, schools, and police checkpoints.  Once the locals saw we were there to help them and improve their lives, the intel would start to pour in.  When we were getting hit by IEDs along one stretch of road.  We went in with speaker systems for the mosques which cost $500 apiece.  Within a month, the village elders were pointing out who were the individuals making and planting the IEDs.  It is key to show the locals in Afghanistan that we can bring improvements to their lives, and make them understand that it is their government who is financing these projects.  Use the ANA to conduct the negotiations for the contracts for the projects, and hand over the money in front of the villagers.  Put the Afghan face on all transactions, not Coalition Forces.  As I was leaving country, it was getting more and more difficult to nominate projects to get CERP funds, I understand the need to prevent corruption and be able to account for the money, but it was starting to slow down our progress with working with the locals and ridding our AOs of ACM.

CERP funds are indeed a tool and the method of their application is key to achieve the right effect.  As S3 of the 864th EN BN, we learned that merely throwing CERP money into a project with a US lead does little to bolster and benefit the local Afghan government.  We adjusted our practice to solicit community requirements from the populace through shuras where elders and government leaders were present.  Those would be the people who decide the requirements of village or area and the Army would merely be the funding agent using CERP funds.  We deliberately reduced the signature of the Army at all CERP-funded projects, to include very minimal attendance at ribbon cutting ceremonies, and even that limited merely to taking photos - not participation in the ceremony being performed by the contractor, elders, and government official.

That addresses empowerment of the government, but we also targeted individuals.  The situation we looked at was vast unemployment in turn generating a recruiting ground for insurgent forces or proxies for their actions (i.e. IED planting).  We also had plenty of employment opportunities within the Army such as CERP project construction and military construction missions.  We needed labor and they needed jobs.  But they didn't necessarily have the skills to match the jobs.  So we conducted a series of skill labor workshops ultimately training some 200 Afghans on carpentry and masonry.  Upon completion of training (funded by CERP) the best graduates were recruited into empoyment opportunities ranging from school construction to on-the-FOB military construction.  It was a win-win.  They got employed and we gained additional semi-skilled manpower.

This is an abbreviated summation of a series of articles published by myself in Army Engineer magazine and another by CPT Micala Hicks published on DefenseLink.

I would agree with the article about the first lesson, going from Iraq to Afghanistan would require handling each COIN case differently. Hopefully, one of the other main lessons learned from Iraq and COIN is that US forces need better training to prepare. Training institutions need to incorporate COIN training into their curriculum and unit training in the field which would prepare and give commander's a better understanding of dealing with insurgents.  We train for conventional warfare and full spectrum military operations, why not insure COIN is a part of that training. The doctrine is available, but we do not practice it.

Using CERP funds is working, but using our military leaders to hand over the funds to local tribesmen and governments puts the trust in the US and not the Afghan government. Maybe setting up technical schools to train and educate none hard-core insurgents/local tribesmen/government with much needed job skills to build and repair their own communities would be a good start. The trust needs to be between the Afghan government and local tribes/governments with the US behind the scenes. This may have already been done or is currently working (minus the corruption), but this needs to be one of the main driving priorities. Once we leave, the Afghan government will need to continue this and the trust needs to be built with the governments at all levels.  

One of the key differences it seems between Iraq and Afghanistan is that fact that Iraq had some measure of a functional bureacracy prior to the US invasion.  In fact, the Iraqi people were probably overeliant on Saddam's government.  In Afghanistan, especially outside the major cities, it appears that the idea of a central government that transcends the traditional tribal power structures has not taken hold.  

The use of CERP funds, while positive for keeping young males occupied, does not necessarily create the conditions for Afghan self sustainability.  CERP funds could become just a another form of welfare, which discourages economic initiative.   In simple terms of economic development, the Afghans can either develop internally (a challenge, given the lack of capital available), or attract foriegn direct investment.  The challenge with FDI is what does the country have to offer?  Afghanistan has limited natural resources, a extremely poor level of education, and a terrrible transportation infrastructure.  At least Iraq has oil and a port and generally functional pipeline system.  

If Afghanistan cannot create a viable economy, the central governemnt cannot create the necessary tax base to provide the services that are necessary to maintain credibility with the people.

This post is long on problem identification and short on solutions, but my purpose was mainly to identity why what may have worked in Iraq may not work in Afghanistan.  I am not the first to say this, but strategically, we must build a campaign that brings much of Afghanistan from the middle ages to at least the 20th century, if not the 21st.