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Abstract
This article examines the military aspects of international state-building efforts in Afghanistan through the lens of critical theory. It outlines the conventional approach to state-building, as it has evolved in recent decades, and briefly describes the emerging ‘reflexive critique’ of that approach developed by state-building scholars grounded in critical theory. It then applies the reflexive critique to the Afghan state-building project, an exercise that substantiates key aspects of the critique but also reveals a divergence between the broadly conventional approach taken in Kabul and the more adaptive approaches of many practitioners at the province and district levels. It concludes with a discussion of the potential implications of this convergence for theory and practice of state-building in Afghanistan and beyond.
Notes
Adam Grissom is a senior political scientist at RAND and an adjunct professor of security studies at Georgetown University.
1. The words are spoken by Trinculo, ‘The Tempest’, Act 2, Scene 2.
2. CitationGaddis, Strategies of Containment is the classic treatment on this policy agenda.
3. See, for example, Freedman, ‘Weak States and the West’; CitationKrasner and Pascual, ‘Addressing State Failure’; CitationAbramowitz and Pickering, ‘Making Intervention Work’; and CitationRotberg, ‘Failed States in a World of Terror’.
4. See, for example, CitationRotberg, When States Fail; and CitationFukuyama, State-Building.
5. For a prominent example, see CitationGhani and Lockhart, Fixing Failed States.
6. Many in the field also believe that the international involvement must be pursuant to a formal mandate, conditioned by the consent of the key parties in the subject state, and politically impartial with regard to those key parties. Regime change or strategically-motivated assistance to regimes would therefore fall outside the boundaries of ‘state-building’ for these members of the field. While these are important issues, this article will leave it to others to draw the precise boundaries in this regard.
7. See, for example, the CitationAsia Foundation's 2007 study on State Building, Political Progress, and Human Security in Afghanistan.
8. For an excellent discussion, see CitationGhani et al, Closing the Sovereignty Gap.
9. See Fukuyama, State-Building, 15–20; and CitationParis, At War's End, 151–178.
10. CitationKaplan, ‘Re-thinking State-building’.
11. See Boas in this volume; CitationChandler, Empire in Denial; CitationKaplan, Fixing Fragile States; CitationMenkhaus, ‘Governance without Government’; CitationPapagianni, ‘State-Building and Transitional Politics in Iraq’.
12. See, for example, the RAND Nation Building Series, including CitationDobbins et al., Beginners Guide to Nation Building; CitationDobbins et al., America's Role in Nation Building; CitationDobbins et al., UN's Role in Nation Building; CitationDobbins et al., Europe's Role in Nation Building; Poole and Long, Presidential Decision Making in Nation Building; and CitationBernard et al., Women and Nation Building.
13. See, for example, Kaplan, ‘Rethinking State-building’; Chandler, International Statebuilding and Empire in Denial; CitationGiustozzi, Good States vs. Bad Warlords; Egnell and Halden, ‘Laudable, Ahistorical and Overamibitious’; and Paris, At War's End (this volume).
14. CitationMalley, Afghanistan Wars; Paris, At War's End.
15. Fukuyama, State-Building.
16. This is admittedly a ‘softer’ interpretation of reflexivity than some critical theorists advocate.
17. Some argue that the reflexive critique undermines the very idea of ‘state-building’ (a view discussed in CitationParis and Sisk, Dilemmas of State-building) but that this version of the critique conflates non-universal applicability with universal non-applicability.
18. See, for example, CitationGiustozzi, Afghanistan: Transition Without End.
19. The last Afghan national census was conducted in 1979.
20. The definitive work is CitationBarfield, Afghanistan.
21. CitationKolenda uses this phrase in ‘Winning Afghanistan’.
22. See, for example, CitationGiustozzi, Empires of Mud.
23. Barfield, Afghanistan.
24. See, for example, CitationRoy, Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan; CitationGiustozzi, War, Politics and Society in Afghanistan; and Malley, Afghanistan Wars.
25. Progress toward Stability, 39.
26. Progress toward Stability, 39
27. Conversation with ISAF personnel, Washington DC, May 2010.
28. CitationGiustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban.
29. For a useful overview, see CitationGiustozzi, Koran, Kalashnikov, and Laptop; Giustozzi, Empires of Mud; Giustozzi, Decoding the New Taliban; CitationKilcullen, Accidental Guerillas.
30. CitationDressler and Forsbert, Quetta Shura Taliban.
31. Mission mandate reprinted at: http://unama.unmissions.org/Default.aspx?tabid = 1742 [Accessed 1 May 2010].
32. Data from: http://afghanistan-analyst.org [Accessed 15 March 2010].
33. CitationICG, Afghanistan's Endangered Compact.
34. Interviews, Operational Co-ordination Centres in Ghazni and Jalalabad, December 2009.
35. CitationICG, Afghanistan: Elections and the Crisis of Governance.
36. For example, UNAMA deputy chief Ambassador Peter Galbraith often makes this point.
37. See CitationUnited Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Bribery and Corruption in Afghanistan.
38. Progress toward Stability, 91.
39. CitationICG, Policing in Afghanistan.
40. Progress toward Stability, 93.
41. Interview, Kandahar, December 2009.
42. Progress toward Stability, 118.
43. Progress toward Stability, 119.
44. ICG, Policing in Afghanistan.
45. Interviews, Bagram Airfield, December 2009.
46. Progress toward Stability, 104.
47. Progress toward Stability, 104
48. Interviews with ISAF headquarters staff, December 2009. Kabul, Afghanistan.
49. Progress Toward Stability, 106.
50. Interviews with Afghan corps staff, December 2009. Kabul, Afghanistan.
51. Progress toward Stability, 107.
52. CitationICG, Force in Fragments.
53. Reprinted at: http://www.isaf.nato.int/en/our-mission/ [Accessed 1 May 2010].
54. Interviews with ISAF headquarters staff officers, December 2009.
55. Progress toward Stability, 12.
56. Progress toward Stability, 12
57. Progress toward Stability, 12
58. Interviews, Camp Bastion, December 2009.
59. Progress toward Stability, 17.
60. Progress toward Stability, 110.
61. Progress toward Stability, 110
62. Progress toward Stability, 110
63. Malley, Afghanistan Wars.
64. For an excellent overview, see CitationFeaver, Armed Servants.
65. Interviews, Kabul, December 2009.
66. CitationAuerswald and Saideman, ‘NATO at War’.
67. Interviews, Bagram Airfield, March 2008.
68. Interviews, NTM–A, December 2009.
69. Interviews, NTM–A, December 2009
70. Interview with analyst with personal knowledge of this arrangement, Washington DC, May 2010.
71. Interviews, Ghazni, December 2009.
72. Interviews, Camp Bastion, December 2009.
73. Interviews, Tarin Kowt, Decemer 2009.
74. Interviews, Kamp Holland, December 2009.
75. Interview with Captain Paul Toolan, July 2006.
76. Interview with Captain Paul Toolan, July 2006
77. CitationICG, Getting Disarmament Back on Track.
78. Interview with Maj Thomas Clinton, March 2007.
79. CitationGant, One Tribe at a Time.
80. Interview with Maj Thomas Clinton, March 2007.
81. CitationJones and Munoz, Afghanistan's Local War.
82. CitationJones and Munoz, Afghanistan's Local War
83. Interview with Kolenda, FOB Kamdesh, March 2008.
84. Interview with team, Asadabad PRT, March 2008.
85. Interviews throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan, December 2009.