Musings Often in Stereo

Note: This is my final paper in POL 4810: Transatlantic International Relations, taught by the hilarious and otherwise brilliant Franz Kernic. It details the EU’s role in the war in Afghanistan; specifically, how has the EU acted, how it hasn’t acted, and how it has adapted to the changes in the dynamic of the war regarding both the changes in policy by the United States and the deterioration of security on the ground. My personal opinion: the failures in Afghanistan are more the result of the United States and their decision to fight one unnecessary war in Iraq while dealing with a more serious and more necessary security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The EU’s failings have been to an extent a misunderstanding of the limits of soft power, but it is more than reasonable to suggest that if a soft power role is the one assigned, it shouldn’t be an expectation to cover for someone else’s hard power slack.

Evaluating the EU’s Role in Afghanistan

Two major facts stand out in a review of the war on terror. The first is clear: it is a transatlantic issue. The United States has had its defining moments; the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center complex was followed by 1999′s African embassy bombs in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam, followed by the attacks on September 11, 2001. At the same time, Europe has had internal attacks over the same timeframe, continuing through the 2000s to include attacks in London, Glasgow, and Madrid, as well as outside its borders in Bali and Islamabad. All sides of the transatlantic bargain feel an existential threat from the specter of terrorism. The second fact is equally clear: Afghanistan presents the clearest battleground for the war on terror. The intelligence consistently paints the leadership of al-Qaeda as hiding in the border areas between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a stronghold that they have held since the days of the Taliban’s rule. To destroy the infrastructure of terrorism as the West knows it, it is critical to keep Afghanistan out of the hands of radicals.

The conflict in Afghanistan is at a critical moment. The Taliban has made increasing gains in rural areas, allowing al-Qaeda to regain strength. Terror has spread into Pakistan. The opium trade has flourished, the government has fallen to corruption, the economy hasn’t been able to overcome its state’s instability. The United States has sent an additional 18,000 troops to the country in the past year and, on December 1st, President Barack Obama announced plans to surge 30,000 troops before a phased withdrawal beginning in 2011 (Obama). At this point, it is imperative to review the actions of all actors in the conflict; the European Union is one such actor.

As an institution, the EU has played a large role in the war in Afghanistan. A review of the Union’s military policy, economic and humanitarian work1, and how their role has been impacted by changes in the dynamic of the conflict leads to the central focus of this paper: Has the European Union been an effective partner in the conflict in Afghanistan?

EU Policy in Afghanistan: An Exercise in Soft Power

The conflict’s military side has been largely based around the actions of the United States and its partners in NATO. Military operations commenced in September and October of 2001 as the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom displaced Taliban rule. 2003 saw command shift over to NATO leadership through the International Security Assistance Force, commonly referred to as ISAF. ISAF forces are a mix of forces from NATO’s member nations, the lion’s share of which come from the United States; leadership of ISAF rotates every six months between upper-level generals from member nations with most to all planning conducted by U.S. generals such as David Petraeus, David McKiernan, and current leader Stanley McChrystal. The role of ISAF forces has evolved rapidly from its inception, leading to the 2006 shift to have the force be in charge of operations throughout the country under a UN Security Council mandate. After this 2006 shift, ISAF troops have conducted combat operations, assisted in voter registration work (“Chronology”), and have trained Afghan soldiers for the eventual handover of control to the Army; this last mission has already been somewhat successful, as the Afghan Army runs security operations in Kabul province (“Facts and Figures”).

It stands to note that in that description, there is no mention of the European Union. The EU has had a non-existent military role in Afghanistan. ISAF leaders give instructional briefings to ESDP and related agencies within the EU structure; an example was the recent presentation by ISAF Deputy Commander Jim Dutton to OSCE on “ISAF’s Mission and its Implications on OSCE participating States” in October 2009 (“EU Statement in the OSCE”). This inaction is not a result of a force being unavailable. In January of 2007, the EU and ESDP announced the ability to launch up to two rapid response battlegroups of up to 1,500 forces to any location within 6,000 kilometers of Brussels. Such a force has not been used in Afghanistan, with the EU denoting its role as being a quick action force to provide immediate relief to areas of conflict (“EU Battlegroups”). This is not to suggest that the EU hasn’t been supportive of its member nations that participate in ISAF forces. The OSCE commentary thanking ISAF for the presentation, as well as earlier statements, points out EU member nations’ commitment of 29,000 troops to ISAF’s Afghanistan forces (“EU Statement in the OSCE”). Furthermore, the EU’s statement upon Barack Obama’s announcement of the planned surge “welcomed” the U.S.’s renewed and extended commitment to ISAF, declaring that it will work with its partners, i.e. member states, to continue to work for peace and security in the country (“Declaration by the Presidency”). In other words, the EU is supportive of the presence of an outside military force in Afghanistan; it just has not been their own.

While the EU has shied away from using hard power in Afghanistan, it has been a leading force in providing economic aid and other methods of soft power throughout the conflict. The EU has pledged over 1.4 billion euro in economic aid since the fall of the Taliban in 2002 by addressing needs from the Afghan government’s National Development Strategy, or ANDS. It has designated three major areas of focus for its efforts: governance, rural development, and health. Its efforts on governance have largely been to create and strengthen the new Afghan government’s institutions. It has directed funds through these efforts to build and sustain schools, create local governmental sub-structures, and create stronger customs stations at its borders; all of these efforts, the EU believes, strengthen the stability and legitimacy of the government. The EU’s rural development focus has been used to fund Afghanistan’s National Solidarity Program, or NSP, and its efforts to build infrastructure in outlying areas with local labor and support. These efforts include the rebuilding of the Torkham road, the main artery between Kabul and the border with Pakistan; after a 60 million euro project, the travel time between the border has dropped by nearly 70%, facilitating commerce throughout the country and empowering rural agriculture. Public health has been addressed primarily through the EU’s capacity development of the country’s health ministry; these efforts have been specifically focused on the institutional side of medicine, like building hospitals and getting the training mechanisms in place for future doctors. The EU has also has made social protection and mine reduction secondary focuses. 24 million euro has gone toward supporting human rights and social security in Afghanistan through the promotion of women’s rights and an effort against human trafficking; meanwhile, the EU has spent upwards of 67 million euro on clearing one-quarter of the 960 square kilometers believed to hold land mines from the conflict with the Soviet Union between 1980 and 1989 (EUROPA).

A major part of the EU’s economic aid packaging is the use of either extra- or non-governmental organizations to achieve goals. The EU has been a heavy contributor to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, or ARTF, a fund established in 2002 by the World Bank to oversee both debt repayment and the implementation of infrastructure projects. ARTF funds have gone toward rebuilding roads and power grids, as well as providing microfinancing for enterprising business owners (“Country Overview 2009″). The fund works through ANDS to act as the international community’s steering mechanism for the Afghan government; it has worked, as ARTF funds made up around 27 percent of the Afghan budget for core development and over half of the non-security related development expenditures during SY 13872 (ARTF 4-6). The EU has used ARTF to fund its governmental aid packaging, directing funds toward NSP to fund locally-based development projects. Additionally, the 230 million euro spent since 2002 has gone toward paying recurrent costs for the Afghan government, namely teacher salaries (EUROPA). The EU has also contributed 180 million euro to the UN’s Law and Order Trust Fund, a fund that pays the salaries of a civilian police force; the EU suggests that this has employed over 60,000 Afghan citizens. Furthermore, the EU’s public health effort has been partially based on building rural clinics with NGOs like Doctors Without Borders. These efforts, the EU says, have brought basic health care to over one-third of Afghanistan’s population (EUROPA). This comes somewhat in conflict with the EU’s rhetoric, which emphasizes the need to “utilise Government structures wherever this is feasible” to implement policies (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 19).

The overarching theme is that the EU’s focus in Afghanistan policy has been one of soft power. It has avoided entirely the use of a military force, leaving that role to the United States and NATO, though it has endorsed their policies. Instead, it has used a vast portfolio of economic aid to achieve its goals of democratization and the reduction of poverty.

The Changing Face of the War and EU Policy

The dynamics of the conflict have evolved since 2002 for a myriad of reasons. Conditions on the ground have ebbed and flowed between strength and deterioration of the government’s legitimacy. The Taliban has gained strength, chipping away at security in rural areas. The drug trade has increased during the conflict, creating both concerns in the funding of terrorism as well as the spread of opium through a porous border (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 7-9). The ISAF force has changed greatly as upper level commanders from the United States, as well as troops, have been shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq (“Chronology”3); this has led to a drain of talent and focus on the part of the United States that has helped to destabilize the already tenuous security situation. On a positive note, Afghanistan’s provisional government has turned into a democratically elected one; the Bonn process is over, and the result is a structurally autonomous National Assembly. Additionally, Afghanistan is implementing structures of a market economy, and is seeing some growth in GDP and other economic indicators (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 11).

With all of this change, it’s interesting to note that the EU has held a very solid line on both its economic and military policy. The EU has had two phases of economic aid packaging that have each followed multi-year plans; the first coming in 2003 after both the Bonn Agreement and the Tokyo Pledging Conference, the second coming from the London Conference, a meeting to discuss the next steps after the plan’s expiration in 2006 (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 37). In both of those plans, the same types of general goals were outlined, focusing primarily on solving the humanitarian crisis of the war and providing support for the rebuilding of infrastructure. The 2007 Strategy Paper makes it clear that the EU sees their new aid package as a continuation to their previous policies both in what is funded and how the funding mechanisms are used. The paper outlines an aid package that appears remarkably similar to the previous one; aid levels are similar, as are the targets for aid and the programs. The EU reasserts its desire to work with both the Afghan government and the World Bank, effectively saying they wish the same type of dispersion as in the previous four year plan. The goal of aid continues to be to build institutions and infrastructure that promote economic growth and human rights to take the country out of abject poverty and authoritarianism. Where the EU has shifted its policy is in rhetorical focus; the Union cites a change from its original goals in humanitarian aid as the shift from “responding to an immediate humanitarian crisis to one of tackling the more long-term development and migratory challenges of displaced populations” (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 16). In reviewing the changes overall, however, there isn’t evidence of this being more than words; both plans appear to have the same focus of creating initial democratizing structures as part of addressing immediate aid concerns. Additional changes in policy appear more to be based on refining what was already in place; the EU cites a need to be more geographically focused in its rural rebuilding efforts instead of working in all but one of the country’s 34 provinces, as well as a new focus on decentralization of governmental aid to the rural provinces (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 15-17). Still, the changes that the EU has undertaken in its aid policy are minute, providing no substantive difference that reflects the changing face of Afghanistan.

Militarily speaking, the EU has also stayed consistent in not providing a troop force. The papers from both the 2003-2006 and 2007-2013 strategies leave out substantive discussion of the military presence in the country provided by the United States and NATO; the EU states bluntly and succinctly that, “The security sector is another area where the Commission is not involved” (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ 18). In both the 2003 and 2007 strategy papers, no money is pledged for a military or security force (“Country Strategy Paper 2007-2013″ and “Country Strategy Paper 2003-2006″). The EU’s presence in a military sense comes solely from the institutional link between the Afghan army and its police force. EUPOL has a training mission in Afghanistan to teach Afghan police officers methods to stop human trafficking and the drug trade through a strengthening of the country’s border patrols; this is a part of ESDP, as the EU sees the drug trade as a way to harbor military instability. This is a relatively new development in the war; EUPOL has instituted this force since 2007 (“EU Police”). However, it is a very minor portion of the security and military aspect of the war at large.

Analysis: The EU as a Role Player in Afghanistan

An analysis of the effectiveness of policies in Afghanistan must be pessimistic considering the extent to which the country is currently in shambles. According to the CIA World Factbook, Afghanistan’s economy is “extremely poor, landlocked, and highly dependent on foreign aid… the Afghan government’s inability to extend rule of law to all parts of the country pose challenges to future economic growth.” Its per capita GDP ranks tenth-last in the world. Its unemployment rate hovers around 40%, and it ranks in the lower quarter percentile of countries for exports when illicit activities like narco-trafficking and arms dealing are left out. Its chief agricultural export is opium, a crop that funnels money to the Taliban and other terrorist organizations. Its infant mortality rate ranks third highest in the world. Its death rate is eighth highest, and its life expectancy rate of 44.64 years is eleventh worst. Only 28.1% of adults are basically literate. Its most recent election was marred by allegations of fraud by President Hamid Karzai; a subsequent runoff against Abdullah Abdullah in October of 2009 was canceled in protest. The Taliban has made gains in the south and east of the country along its border with Pakistan, an area still believed to be harboring terrorists like Osama bin Laden (CIA World Factbook). In short, the rebuilding of Afghanistan has been a slow work in progress.

Such a view raises a nihilistic analysis of the effectiveness of aid by all sides, including the EU. The economic aid that the EU has provided has clearly been insufficient to pull Afghanistan into even relative levels of poverty. Statements that the EU makes about improving literacy and public health may be true, but only because there was nothing to initially work from. Concerns exist that the infrastructural support the EU has brought on through the work of the ARTF has, for lack of a better term, paved the road for the Taliban’s rise. The Taliban uses infrastructure built with EU aid dollars as targets for insurgent attacks; sixteen IED attacks have been launched against women’s schools, which Human Rights Watch calls “the only symbol of government,” since 2005 (Human Rights Watch). Equally important is the notion that through performing and funding the basic roles of government through humanitarian aid, the EU is propping up a Karzai government that has been otherwise slow to meet its citizens’ needs, as well as corrupt. With all of this in mind, it is easy to say that the efforts of all parties, including the EU, have been ineffective.

That type of analysis, however, does not ask why the efforts have been ineffective. Afghanistan is clearly a work in progress; nation building does not take place overnight, and the change to capitalism and democracy in a country that has known authoritarianism for centuries simply draws out the length of time for real change to occur. The issues that have plagued the reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan do not appear to be a failure of economic aid; schools and hospitals are being built only to be destroyed or overtaken by Taliban forces. The continued rise of the drug trade appears less a product of inadequate diversion by the government and more a product of inadequate policing. The expanse of the Taliban’s intimidation and power in rural Afghanistan, then, can be seen as less an inadequacy of soft power resources by the EU and more as an indictment of failed hard power by the U.S. and NATO.

The central question in analyzing the EU’s effectiveness in Afghanistan, then, is to debate whether its role was to provide a soft power counterbalance to the efforts of NATO or to have its efforts work independently of the war itself. If the EU’s comments are to be trusted, the Union visions its role to be precisely the former. Its comments after the U.S.’s announcement to send additional troops to the region outline this view:

The European Union underlines the need to maintain a comprehensive approach to the

challenges in Afghanistan. A positive development will require a combination of political,

military and civilian/development instruments, the main purpose of which should be to

enable the government of Afghanistan to gradually assume full responsibility for the

stabilisation and development of the country, and to deliver rapid, tangible results. (“Declaration by the Presidency”)

In this regard and in context of the policies it has taken, it’s clear that the EU sees itself as a partner with the United States; the partnership is based on the EU’s use of soft power methods that contrast with the United States and NATO’s use of hard power.

Bearing this in mind, the EU’s work in Afghanistan has followed the same sorts of limits that soft power always has. Soft power is limited in its ability to craft a state in an inverse way that hard power is; hard power gives the crafting state the avenue to implement change, while soft power puts said changes like democratization into process. In other words, hard power clears the way for soft power’s rebuilding. The flip side of this is that just in the way that exclusive militarism cannot build a school, exclusive humanitarianism cannot secure a newly built school. This has been the issue with the resurgence of the Taliban in rural Afghanistan: where security stops, the Taliban is able to take control and use new infrastructure to their gain. The EU has not necessarily failed in Afghanistan if their role is as delineated as it says; the failure thus far has been in providing security for new growth.

Where the EU has failed, though, is that it has kept their role delineated instead of adapting it to the realities on the ground and with U.S. policy. The EU acted without respect to reality in thinking their efforts would be sufficient without proper security. As the situation in Afghanistan deteriorated with the United States’ shift of focus, the EU had not only an opportunity to take charge in more than a humanitarian aid fashion, but an increasing level of means. The United States’ move toward an Iraq-centric security policy coincided with the development of EU battle groups, and the EU had the capacity to send targeted forces to the region by 2007 (EU Battlegroups). Instead, the EU opted against doing so, continuing to rhetorically support their member nations who contributed to a NATO force. It held its role as the soft power balance to the hard power that had grown thin on the part of the United States. The result was twofold: the security situation fell apart to the point that the EU’s economic aid efforts became insufficient to rebuild Afghanistan, and the EU missed a major chance to test and assert its military capability.

In summary, the EU’s role in Afghanistan has been to provide economic aid on a large scale to advance the goals of democratization and the amelioration of poverty. It has been consistently reluctant to act as a military power, opting instead to leave that role to the United States and NATO. Its policies remained steadfast through the changing phases of the war, and while it can be criticized for not adapting its policies to include a military aspect as the United States drew its focus toward Iraq, it has been as effective as reasonably possible in standing as the soft power force in the rebuilding efforts.

Works Cited

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