Military Review English Edition January-February 2014 | Page 42

Funds for development assistance increased dramatically. President Bush’s last annual reconstruction funding request was for $1.25 billion. In 2010,
Obama requested $4.3 billion. 39 Contracting firm
International Relief & Development was charged
with spending $300 million for USAID in a single
year. This was enough, by some estimates, to triple
or quadruple the economy of individual districts.
Often this money went through district governors
or governors in an attempt to build state legitimacy
and authority. In Nawa, the influx of money transformed activities like ditch cleaning from unpaid
obligations to lucrative jobs. Chandrasekaran
reports that this financial incentive attracted teachers from schools. A construction industry emerged,
and electronics from Pakistan were sold on the main
road. Farmers sold excess fertilizer and equipment
to buyers in Pakistan. Plastic sheeting did not support agriculture as intended, but was either thrown
out or became windows.40
Chandrasekaran reports that utility of the Kajaki
Dam project was similarly unclear. American forces
fought tenaciously to clear the areas north of Kandahar City not only to deny the Taliban a stronghold,
but also to secure the half-built Kajaki Dam. The
addition of another turbine, it was thought, would
allow Kandahar City uninterrupted electricity. This
service, in turn, would ensure loyalty to the state.
After repeated attempts, including U.S. government
contracts with American and Chinese firms, support
from British troops, and a Commander’s Emergency
Response Program-funded initiative, USAID began
work on a $5 billion plan. In the end, though, the
project may have exacerbated conflict rather than
ameliorate it by indirectly providing resources,
such as materials and construction contracts, to
fight over. It furthermore revealed the government’s
feebleness, as the Taliban siphoned electricity off
of power lines and provided it to locals.41
Attempts to operationalize the Western-ideal-type
state often propped up official but predatory and/
or weak actors while ignoring informal centers of
power. Residents of Marja reacted unfavorably to
Karzai’s tour with the disliked former governor and
police chief. “We will tell y ou that the warlords
who ruled us for the past eight years, those people
whose hands are red with the people’s blood—those
people who killed hundreds—they are still ruling
over this nation,” thundered Haji Abdul Aziz, a
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prominent elder. “For so many years, there were
only promises . . . The people have run out of
patience.”42 When a car bomb killed Arghandab
district governor Jabar in June 2010, it was not a
Taliban assassination. Rather, it was in response
to his pilfering of reconstruction and development
funds. To those on the ground, it was not clear that
U.S. support of Jabar degraded the insurgency; it
is clear that it created new challenges.
Because doctrine and strategy did not provide
a platform for dealing with politics, FM 3-24
advocates simply increasing the size and responsibilities of the state. It is not surprising that the
United States had no coherent political strategy.
For example, by the end of 2009, McChrystal
stopped trying to oust Abdul Razziq, the commander of the border crossing for the main route
for U.S. supplies from Pakistan. While Razziq
was believed to be massively corrupt, the U.S.led coalition decided that border security was
paramount. 43 Later in Marja, Haji Zahir was
appointed district governor despite having spent

U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Lewis (left) and U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter (right) on a visit to the Kajakai Dam, Helmand
Province, Afghanistan, 24 Febuary 2012. (Royal Air Force, Corporal
Paul Oldfield)

January-February 2014 MILITARY REVIEW