Seth Jones' Book: It's All Been Said Before

Editor's Note: the following is a guest post from my colleague, Haley Gallagher on an event for Seth Jones' new book In the Graveyard of Empires. The views expressed are her own.

After attending Seth Jones’ presentation of his new book, In the Graveyard of Empires, I wouldn’t quite give him the glowing praise supported by the Times.

For one thing, Jones didn’t illuminate anything that we South Asianists haven’t pondered before. You mean the U.S. should address the massive corruption, decentralization of Afghani politics, and engagement of the Pakistani military and civilian leaders? You don’t say.

To his first point, corruption at the national and local levels exists throughout all of South Asia. We have to ask ourselves why it’s so entrenched in these societies and how we work to minimize it? It seems to me that it’s due to the lack of revenue, resources and the law. If the United States can work at the grassroots level to promote real economic development and access to social services that is better than what the insurgents or foreign Islamic Aid agencies are providing, we’ll hopefully rebuild our trust and reputation among the Afghani people.

To his second point, most development and South Asia policy experts are aware of the level of decentralization that exists throughout Afghanistan. We all realize the importance, historical relevance and complexity of the clan and tribal structure within Afghanistan’s political system. We know that to win a war, we must foster strong tribal relationships and win their support. This cannot be done from the compound in Kabul, however. Nor should the United States rely solely on police, military or intelligence forces to win hearts and minds. The United States needs to promote good governance at the grassroots level within an Afghan context and their existing political structures. In addition to grassroots diplomacy, the United States should actively engage and support civil society and NGOs working throughout Afghanistan.

To Jones’ third point, no one has thought about Afghanistan in isolation from the rest of the region. We all know that Pakistan and India are other big players who can serve a vital role in finding and snuffing out militant groups. The geopolitics at play, however, are of great consequence. Many of Washington’s challenges in Pakistan and Afghanistan are linked, and so it is correct and overdue that the United States should formulate a strategy to address the region as a whole.

Back in April, the Council on Foreign Relations released a policy paper response to the new U.S. Strategy for South Asia, “From AfPak to PakAf.” In it, Daniel Markey suggests that “a policy of inducement—through financial, technical and diplomatic assistance—is the best means to shift the strategic calculations of influential Pakistanis and bolster moderates who share basic U.S. interests.” He also suggests that the United States should support long-term development assistance in Afghanistan, with the capacity and mandate to support and expand local, community-based development projects. I couldn’t agree more. As we’ve recently witnessed with the Iranian election, change oftentimes begins from the bottom up.

Weekend Reading: the Welfare War

I wanted to highlight an informative article from this weekend's news. If you want to know what life is like for soldiers on the ground in Afghanistan, and don't have time to read Craig Mullaney's excellent The Unforgiving Minute (or in the meantime), read "In Afghanistan, Soldiers Bridge 2 Stages of War."

Power Rules, by Les Gelb

I just returned from a Council on Foreign Relations book release event for Leslie Gelb's new book Power Rules: How Common Sense Can Rescue American Foreign Policy. I haven't read the book yet but from the talk the basic idea is a return to Machiavelli's principles of it being safer to be feared than loved, and that studying war is the only thing necessary. He discussed his belief that "soft power" isn't, that no country has changed its course because they liked America's beliefs or pop culture, and that power is the only thing that works in international relations. As a qualifier he stated that force is applied when power has failed, softening his statement somewhat.

He was asked directly about Pakistan and Afghanistan and, not surprisingly considering his recent op-ed in the New York Times, stated that he thought our efforts were a waste of time and that we should let Pakistan and Afghanistan settle their own affairs.

Gelb also compared Republicans' lack of discussion or criticism of President Bush's decisions to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to congressional Democrats' current lack of discussion of President Obama's foreign policy goals for Iraq and Afghanistan. Jim Arkedis over at All Our Might makes a similar point in a post today.

I most closely align myself with the realist school of international relations, but I strongly disagree with the idea that only "hard" military power works. Call it "soft power," "smart power," or, as Colin Powell and I prefer, "smart influence," long term engagement and interaction, the attractiveness of a culture, leaders, and values help avoid crises in the first place, make the first two D's of international relations, diplomacy and development, more likely to work and thus help avoid having to use the third, defense.