See, in a perfect world, China would build a pipeline from Iran through Afghanistan; then at least someone would have a economically vested interest in keeping that country stable. As it stands now, no one wants to touch it, but it's far too dangerous to let go.

I believe Kilcullen used to be very enthusiastic about this idea a year ago. Some arguments against:
* It gives the Taleban a shootingrange, and is almost impossible to secure.
* The logistics of protecting the workers themselves while performing the job is a daunting task, they will be branded as collaborators and hunted.
* Roads causes shifts in infrastructural powerbalances. For everyone who gets happy, for every quwam that gets strengthened by such an action, someone gets into a relatively weaker position. So they get equally pissed off.
* Increasing economic incentives whithout reforming the political system causes *more* resentment among the peasants, since official wealth will land with the already corrupt and murderous drugkingpins we call allies.

Im sure there are more, I believe J. Foust over at registan.net wrote extensively about it.

In the map above, ignore the red line across the middle of the country-that's not a real road.

I traveled that road using local transport last October and while it's a crummy, treacherous dirt path that closes up in the winter, there were Afghan truckers taking their loads from Kabul to Herat over the central route because the southern ring road had gotten so dangerous. That means four-to-six days instead of one. So yes, the transport situation is getting bad.

My account is here.

In reference to a previous poster, Joshua Froust gave his take on road building=security "meme" in the Sept. '08 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review. That can be found here.

However, I think the roads have more value than fnord, moonofA, or Froust give them credit for. On his blog "Afghanistan Shrugged", ETT chief "Vampire '06" explains better this better than I can:

Roads, we need more of them. A lot more! This is the cornerstone to building Afghanistan and the government. The Romans were successful not because of military technology, it helped, but because they built an extensive road network. Many of which still exist today and are in better shape than roads in Afghanistan.

Without roads the Afghans don’t really need a centralized government. That’s a broad statement but I’ll qualify it here in a minute. The tribe pretty much provides what they need. The tribe protects them, settles disputes and enforces laws. They’re more than capable of doing this and have been for the last several centuries. They fulfill the basic governmental requirements common defense, law and order.

The tribes though can’t build and maintain roads. Now, you need a centralized government to construct, maintain and protect the roads. You get an influx of money as people work on the roads and they quit getting paid to blow us up and it stimulates a demand for goods and services.

With the road comes inter-province commerce for which you need regulation by a central government; a function a tribe can’t accomplish. Sounds kind of like a little situation we had around 1776. The road brings money, communication and progress. You cut the link between Pakistan and the tribal regions because it’s now easier to travel to the interior of Afghanistan to get medical treatment, goods, services the whole lot.

So with a simple road we’ve now created an environment friendly to the support of the Afghan central government. That doesn’t exist now. It’s a lot easier to explain to the Afghans that the Army and police protect the roads and regulate commerce. Additionally taking the, “this is a war on Islam” factor out of the situation.

We’re making sure people can conduct trade and are free to travel as they wish. Sounds like freedom.

Democracy and liberty are damn hard concept to explain to someone who doesn’t see any benefit from the government in Kabul. So what if I elect the guy if he does nothing for me? The population earns money and then we explain that the government will protect their continued ability to do so and that’s a discussion someone understands.

(The source for that one can be found here.)

~T. Greer

Having spent two years in Afghanistan as a highway engineer I can say this is a great idea but probably wouldn't work. The U.S. Gov't (both USAID and USACE) contract out construction to companies and the military has been unable or unwilling to protect the workers and the US govt has difficultly conducting effective inspections of the construction. What we end up with is a very expensive, poorly built road that may or may not be completed after companies take many casulties and have finished some of the higher premium work items. We have actually "completed" most of the Ring Road and now the quality is so bad we need to rebuild it.

I think it would have to be a Toll Road to work. Give each Tribe along the road a Toll to operate so they would have a vested interest in keeping that part of the road functioning. Then, if someone tried to destroy the road it would be taking money out of their hands and they would find the person (much quicker than the U.S.) and punish them (much more severely than the U.S.). We could also subsidize the toll. For every truck that got through we could give the toll operators $20 each. So, they would have the toll money and the subsidy. This would also build trust and positive interaction between the U.S. and the tribal leaders which might yield mutually beneficial intelligence sharing, etc.

A number of people commented on winning in Afghanistan. If we accomplished one goal only I think we could win in Afghanistan: A goal that 95% of the female population was able to read and write by 2019. If we concentrated on that one goal I think everything else would fall into place and we could leave as victors. Just my opinion.

I agree that we missed the window of opportunity back in '04, but I do not think the situation is hopeless now. Let me try to address your concerned bit-by-bit:

"The question becomes: Who gets this money, communication and to take part of the "progress"? And who does it piss off?"

Are you referring to road construction money, or the predicted increase in revenue that accompanies commerce?

"A lot of Afghanistan can best be described as a multi-layered null-sum game, how does the forced introduction of a centralized (and deeply deeply deeply corrupt) state affect this game? Does it piss off more folks than it brings to the table?

I think it is key that any road-build efforts be integrated within Afghanistan's existing communal system. Simply throwing asphalt on the land is not acceptable. The way I envision it, something not unlike a road-only National Solidarity Program (or perhaps a special part of the NSP that focuses on road construction)would be put in place. Local leaders would help plan routes and the community would provide the labor. As a previous commentator brought up, the introduction of a toll (whose revenue goes directly to the community and it needs, not the central government) would make most all members of any given community shareholders in the road's success.

Now I realize that this portrait I have painted is overly simplistic, but for the purpose of this format, the point should stand. By giving community and tribal leaders control over road placement, using local laborers for construction, sending the revenue of toll taxes back to the community, and allowing the widespread adoption of inter-tribe commerce, will force many more to the table than it will send away.

"ALso, this implies a functioning state with judicial legitimacy, which is currently slipping away before our very eyes."

Which is why these roads are necessary. As previously stated, the roads provide Afghanis with a practical reason to trust and support the government. If legitimacy is the issue, there are few better ways to provide it.

Isn't COIN - at least, the contemporary American/Kilcullen version - supposed to be population-centric? Doesn't having static positions to defend differ from this goal *substantially*? How great would the economic benefit be, especially compared to other programs one could pursue? And speaking of tradeoffs, we have a finite number of troops to pursue population-centric coin with a population that is dispersed (my takeaway from your article on Wanat) - do we want to use those troops for road patrol, or for providing security by being in close proximity to the population?

One of your fans, who's wondering why your book tour doesn't include Seattle.