By Joanna Nathan

Much of the recent focus on "corruption" in Afghanistan seems to naively believe that it occurs despite the best efforts of American paymasters rather than because of the very structure of an intervention emphasizing co-option over accountability.

With the New York Times now highlighting Afghan President Hamid Karzai's brother's alleged CIA connections, there will hopefully be greater awareness that many relatives of the Afghan leadership receive backing by a variety of U.S. agencies often working at cross purposes and sending highly mixed messages about their priorities to the Afghan people.

Much of the conduct in the early years of this war was essentially outsourced to the CIA, with little demanded of Afghan allies beyond mouthing allegiance to Kabul and professing hatred of the Taliban. The military has also been to the fore in choosing who to engage, often with little regard for how the population is treated and a blind eye turned to involvement in illegal activities. The head of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has despaired at the fact that "tacit acceptance of opium trafficking by foreign military forces as a way to extract intelligence information and occasional military support in operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda undermines stabilization efforts."

The ineffective hypocrisy of the U.S. government demanding anti-corruption action even as elements of it pay and protect some of the same figures demonstrates a lack of seriousness and fuels discontent. The United States has had an enormous hand in picking the post-2001 economic winners and embedding them at the heart of the state amidst a climate of impunity.

If a militia that works with U.S. personnel in Kandahar can kill the province's police chief in the center of town (as happened in June 2009) and face no apparent consequences what does this say to the local population about the U.S.'s commitment to rule of law? About their personal safety?

If gaudy new mansions built in the local "narco-tecture" style are rented for thousands a month by U.S. contractors, UN agencies, foreign embassies and even rule of law projects, what does that say of the Western commitment to accountability?

Back in 2003 the International Crisis Group highlighted that then-governor Gul Agha Sherzai of Kandahar was the beneficiary of large military contracts, providing supplies to a southern Afghan base -- including translators, meaning other communities could not even ensure a fair hearing by foreign forces.

For it is important to recognize that when Afghans speak of "corruption," they may mean perfectly legal actions under the direct auspices of foreign donors. When they hear of billions of dollars being spent in Afghanistan via private contractors only to often see much of the money lost in layer after layer of subcontracting and little real effect on the ground, that is labeled corruption whatever signed contracts there may be.

If they see relatives of government ministers growing wealthy off foreign contracts, even as the vast majority of the population's living standards remain amongst the worst in the world, they get angry. An excellent recent report into private security contracting in Afghanistan highlights the high level ties of such companies, largely hired to guard foreign organizations and development projects.

The recent focus on tackling various individuals in the name of anti-corruption with calls for the dismissal of this or that minister -- almost invariably the ones who don't wear suits and don't speak English -- misses the point. Getting rid of Marshall Fahim and General Dostum would be no bad thing in itself, but does not correctly frame the problem.

In placing demands on the Afghan administration, the international community's focus must be on systems. For instance, the top tier of police leadership was vetted by a reform board in 2006 only for this body -- which was backed by knowledgeable foreign observers -- that has faded away. Several of the figures the reform board deemed unacceptable are now back in public life. A senior appointments board which was the very first commitment in the 2006 Afghanistan Compact -- an agreement supposed to clearly set out mutual commitments between the Afghan administration and the international community -- was announced to great fanfare but has never been taken seriously in vetting appointees to top government positions. There has been no united insistence from the international community that the Afghan government ensure appointments follow agreed systems.

But before the U.S. administration is in any real position to make demands of the Afghan government, it needs to get its own act together. Over-reliance on expensive private contractors needs to be severely curtailed with the focus put on injecting money through Afghan government systems in a way that strengths local institutions rather than subverts them. The measure of effectiveness needs to be on impact on the ground rather than the sheer amounts poured in. Overarching this must be a cohesive approach across U.S. government agencies as to who is being engaged and ensuring that that no one has impunity.

Joanna Nathan is currently undertaking a mid-career masters at Princeton University. She lived in Kabul from 2003 to 2009 first for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting then as senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. Views expressed are her own.

MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images

By Joanna Nathan

The size of American forces in Afghanistan is currently the subject of heated debate with increasing calls by all sides for more roles to be turned over to Afghan forces apparently as a quick exit strategy.

While it is the right approach, done properly and sustainably it will not be quick. And basic questions need to be properly debated first. How big should the Afghan security apparatus be? How should this be decided? And most importantly of all, what should the roles of the different services be?

In a country with no established population figures (Afghanistan's Central Statistics Office estimates 25 million people and the CIA 33.5 million), as of May 2009 the Afghan National Army (ANA) was reported to have 87,000 troops with an authorized ceiling of 134,000. There were allegedly about 75,000 police by the end of 2008 with thousands more hired before the recent elections and the ceiling raised to 96,800.

Top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan Gen. Stanley McChrystal's review argues for 240,000 ANA and baldly states that the ANP is to grow to 160,000. No calculations behind these figures are set out, and this is well up from just two years ago when the aim was 70,000 ANA and 62,000 ANP.

In July this year it was assessed that only 24 of 559 ANP units were "fully capable" -- although what makes them capable or not is unstated. Such assessments are conducted by the U.S. military largely through the framework of fighting the insurgency rather than the law enforcement focus that the population is crying out for.

In July an interesting report commissioned for the International Police Coordination Board chaired by the Minister of Interior and intended to coordinate all such issues with the international community recommended 136,000 ANP by March 2013. Even more importantly it emphasized the need for a focus on law enforcement by regular police with a separate gendarmerie but operating under a single chain of command.

The latter report was paid for by the European Commission, with Europe still holding nominal lead over international police reform efforts, even as U.S. programs dwarf theirs. That there are such separate reviews going on speaks volumes about international coordination.

 And as for the Afghan side? Far too little is heard from -- and expected of -- the ministers and heads of the services in clearly setting forth their goals and priorities to ensure a common understanding. A lack of basic agreed-upon frameworks to make such decisions leads to ministries simply shopping between donor nations for what they -- or even that particular rotation -- are willing to provide. Ceilings for numbers of security forces are incrementally raised with little demanded in terms of effectiveness measures. Various schemes for militias come and go, distracting resources and attention from the core issue of functional institutions.

The minister of interior Hanif Atmar is one of those pushing for a large increase in the number of police. But this focus on sheer quantity obscures the larger questions on quality -- which both the International Crisis Group and the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) have long highlighted as the truly decisive factor. It has never been explained why, when the problem is that the police are ill-trained (eight weeks basic training if they are lucky), poorly vetted and unaccountable, how having even more police who have even less training, less vetting and less oversight will improve things. And where will a new generation of leadership to oversee the vast expansion spring from when officer training -- rightly -- takes three years?

The minister of defense General Abdurrahim Wardak also keeps demanding the size of his army be increased while apparently insisting it does not have a role in holding the areas "cleared" by international forces. It well may not have a role, but then why are the numbers forever being bumped up?

I see the most crucial position in the next cabinet as being that of National Security Advisor. Forget demands for the creation of new technocratic positions to somehow save Afghanistan. What is already in place needs to be made functional and accountable. The Afghan administration requires a clear, united position on what the threats are and what the different forces' roles are in responding to them. According to the European-commissioned police report the last available national threat assessment was produced in 2005.

Afghanistan's National Security Council has had large sums poured into it by the international community (much of that it must be said spent on "foreign advisors") with little to show. This needs to be THE body where Afghan ministers come together to forge united security assessments and policy and then speak with one voice to the donor community.  To be successful the roles and sizes of the police, army and intelligence services need to be part of a widely agreed strategy looking beyond merely fighting rather than the result of continual closed-door haggling and ad hoc programs.

Joanna Nathan is currently undertaking a mid-career masters at Princeton University. She was the senior analyst for the International Crisis Group in Kabul from 2005-2009, working on two policing reports: Reforming Afghanistan's Police (2007) and Policing in Afghanistan: Still Searching for a Strategy (2008).

By Joanna Nathan

Fareed Zakaria argues that the U.S. needs to put "buying, renting or bribing" tribesmen before nation-building. The problem is that such deal-making has been the failed policy in Afghanistan.

From the crude suitcases of cash handed over in the immediate wake of September 11, 2001 to today's more euphemistic payments to "security" companies and a blind eye to abuses by "allies," the U.S.'s strategy has largely been about snuggling up to strongmen.

Fred Kaplan similarly suggests that the U.S. should "bribe" its way to victory because "the Afghan regime is corrupt, and if the Afghan people regard it as illegitimate, then it can't provide "good governance," and it won't be embraced as "an alternative to Taliban rule." This fails to recognize that the illegitimacy, corruption and bad governance stem from the very fact that U.S. policy has been centered around backing favored individuals. No need to give "serious thought... to bribing several governors and other key figures as well." That is broadly what has been attempted for eight years.

Corruption is not, as seems to be assumed here, something innate to Afghan culture or the result of extraordinarily bad luck in political appointments. It is an entirely logical and systemic reaction -- which would be seen anywhere in the world -- to huge amounts of money washing around without accountability. What minimal accounting that exists is to international donors rather that to the Afghan people. Mouthing nominal allegiance to Afghanistan's central administration often appears all that is required. That is not democracy, it is not nation-building, and it does not promote stability.

Outsiders are terrible at knowing who to pay off and perceiving the consequences amidst a social fabric rent by decades of war. Trusted Afghan "allies" have systematically used naïve foreigners to entrench their own networks and alienate or eliminate rivals. The grievances and impunity created have played an enormous part in the burgeoning insurgency and exploding opium trade. To simply now seek to draw more "Taliban" commanders and abusive predators in the mix, as Zakaria promotes, without tackling the internal and regional structural issues that have driven decades of conflict would be fuel for the fire.

This is of course not just about the last eight years -- but how little we have learned from history. Hard-line groups dominate the political landscape (both government and anti-government) to a much greater extent than any real constituency specifically because of international support received, at the expense of more moderate groups, during the years of anti-Soviet war. It was previously U.S.-funded hired guns that so terrorized the Afghan population in the following civil war that there was initial support for the Taliban -- itself a twisted incarnation born of the U.S.'s prior policy of backing the most radical and extreme jihadists.

When the United States chose to rent these men again, rather than putting foreign troops on the ground in large numbers to ensure what would have been a welcome neutral security presence, it was with little accountability. A diplomat once boasted to me that it was good that the local "police chief" was a drug dealer because he could then afford to outfit his "police" with better equipment than those subsisting purely on (foreign-financed) government supplies. Never mind that his abuse of rival communities was in large part responsible for the area being a hotbed of "insurgent" activity.

It all makes me wonder exactly what policymakers have been told back in Washington about the importance of nation-building. Nation-building certainly has not been the priority on the ground. Stunting the growth of political parties, sidestepping the elected National Assembly and Provincial Councils, cash for strongmen and a preference for expensive contractors rather than strengthening local ministries does not add up to a sustainable Afghan state being the priority.

Since 2004 the ‘Pashtunization' of the center has been one of the most noticeable political trends in Afghanistan, so I don't understand Zakaria's point on this. Far more important in incubating the festering sense of alienation -- which the Taliban have been quick to pick up on -- are local intra-Pashtun grievances. Carmela Baranowska's brave 2004 documentary "Taliban Country" featuring then-Uruzgan governor Jan Mohammad and Sarah Chayes' book The Punishment of Virtue on post-2001 Kandahar and the role of then-governor Gul Agha Sherzai are excellent resources to understand exactly who was backed and to challenge ideas that nation-building has already been given our best shot.

Additionally, payments to strongmen are not even guaranteed to protect U.S. interests. There have been mysterious attacks by "the Taliban" when "allies" are seeking price increases from foreign paymasters for providing convoy "security" in what are often little more than protection rackets.

Rented allies are not reliable allies. Simply buying or bribing more commanders of whatever ilk will mean more instability in an environment where entrenched interests in a war economy are already playing the international community -- not the other way around. Money is leverage and the populations of both Afghanistan and the U.S. need to be involved in debating how it is spent, rather than grubby backhanders. This must include clearly agreed public standards and measures -- and sanctions if they are not met. I am not saying this is easy, but simply blindly backing individuals has already been tried and failed. The top priority must be a real commitment to nation-building and trying to ensure an administration and institutions worth joining.

Joanna Nathan is currently undertaking a mid-career masters at Princeton University. She lived in Kabul from 2003 to 2009 first for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting then as senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. Views expressed are her own.

SHAH MARAI/AFP/Getty Images

By Joanna Nathan

Thursday's New York Times ran this interesting article drawing together material on the U.S. ‘strongman policy' in Afghanistan, specifically Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim -- President Hamid Karzai's vice presidential nominee.

Fahim certainly did "work closely with the Central Intelligence Agency and was rewarded with millions of dollars in cash," but there was no need to rely on unnamed officials. There are first-hand cash amounts in Gary Schroen's book First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan. Of their initial post-September 11 meeting in Panjshir, Schroen states: "I produced the backpack with the $1 million and explained to Fahim that these funds were to assist preparing his military forces for the coming battle... I stressed that other money was available if and when specific needs were identified." After a later discussion: "I pointed to the cardboard box on the chair near the door and said it contained $1.7million."

The re-empowerment of Afghanistan's strongmen -- many so reviled by the population in the 1990s that it meant some initial popular support for the expansion of the Taliban -- WAS the U.S. plan. The intention to keep foreign forces out of harm's way and avoid any messy "nation building." As is stated, it is now widely recognized that this laid the ground for today's culture of impunity. More foreign peacekeepers back then -- when they really would have been peacekeepers -- could have provided neutral space for other players and institutions to take root.

The New York Times article however gives current U.S. involvement too much of a pass. Favoring strongmen often continues to be the policy at the local level -- look at certain U.S. element's support for Uruzgan strongman Matiullah Khan. Various nations all have "their" strongmen, usually in the areas of "their" PRTs and don't want the boat rocked by standing up to them. Large amounts of funds are often directed to such players to buy the (short term) peace, often in the guise of "private security companies."

Allegations against the favored are still ignored. There was resounding silence following a recent investigative story highlighting an alleged paper trail implicating the Ministry of Interior's deputy minister responsible for counternarcotics of involvement in the illegal trade.

It is such issues that lie at the very heart of ongoing debates of counterterrorism versus counterinsurgency. A true counterinsurgency strategy requires tackling the underlying conditions that drive the insurgency -- including the impunity enjoyed by strongmen. The more limited goals being touted in the name of counterterrorism -- focusing on just hunting down al Qaeda -- imply more of the same. Look how far that has gotten Afghanistan.

Joanna Nathan is currently undertaking a mid-career masters at Princeton University. She lived in Kabul from 2003 to 2009 first for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting then as senior analyst for the International Crisis Group. Views expressed are her own.