Sure, the answer to Afghan/Karzai corruption and incompetence is to invite the assorted tribal groupings assembled under the Taliban umbrella into the government in a meaningful way. Make it worth their while by giving in on an aggressive ISAF withdrawal timetable, cash and lots of it, in exchange for a quiet, indeed, secret protocol to dis-invite al-Qaida from Afghanistan. Additionally, recruit the Pakistani ISI whom the Afghan Taliban are more likely to trust to monitor and act as the go between for meaningful talks. Of course, we would have to make it worthwhile for the ISI, which means also lots more cash but a pittance in comparison to the flood of money we are now wasting. This is far more efficient than the asinine policy we currently are pursuing and would likely please our NATO partners to no end.

This would be an approach that the Romans and the British when governing at their best would have heartily endorsed rather than the stupidity that now stands for American foreign policy in the region. The chicken hawk neocon-Republicans may have wet dreams of endless war but the jaded American public does not share that view particularly when the economy is in the toilet. It is time for this country to begin managing its affairs like an adult and not an adolescent.

"how the U.S. government intends to improve the behavior of the Karzai government"

Well for starters we have to remove "Karzai" from that sentence. The systematic dismantling of corruption for many Afghan governments to come will take patience.

What we've come to categorize as 'corruption' is the way society functions in Afghanistan (among other places).

Something tells me that our forefathers, who lived through the era of Tamany Hall and party bosses picking favored candidates in smoke-filled backrooms, would have been infinitely more mature about the multi-generational task of instilling fair-play standards in every day society in Afghanistan.

We on the other hand are a generation of "instant" oatmeal and flying wi-fi connections. Most of us can't seem to square the fact that societal evolution takes time... and patience is a strategic virtue in War.

Stanley McChrystal is a despicable, contemptible lowlife who knowingly and willfully made false official statements in the U.S Army Ranger cover up of Pat Tillman’s death. Through his own actions he’s proven himself to be a liar and a man without honor or shame! He should have been given a general court martial, reduced in rank and forced to retire! But because the Army has losers for leaders, this sh*t bird was given another star and put in charge of goat screw in Afghanistan! McChrystal and the head goat-roper Karzai deserve each other, and between the two of them, they’ll FUBAR the sh@thole of Afghanistan. FF.

I think people are beginning to realise that this COIN stuff is all very well (and 100% necessary) but it gets stuck when it comes with developing and working with the government of the host nation. There has been some dealing with the issue in Development literature, though generally much of it assumes a "post-conflict" environment, and is therefore not always hugely helpful in the case of Afghanistan.

This is an area i have personally studied in some detail in the context of the South Vietnamese government, another multi-year effort to get a government to free itself from corruption and work properly. Seeing as the whole thing fell apart only 3 years after the US left, and corruption etc was never fully sorted (ie reduced to "acceptable" levels), the "lessons" I hoped for in terms of set structures that miraculously changed the whole dynamic did not scream out at me. It entailed reading a lot of very detailed and intelligent work on the political side of the Vietnam war, most of which is totally ignored and forgotten in the main literature.

Looking in depth at the 1969-72 period in my paper (as an aside I know Ricks has brough up Diem as a comparison/parallel, personally I think President Thieu is a much better fit) I did note that the realisation that the US was leaving did serve to push the GVN into the realisation that they needed to ensure that they could sustainably survive once the US had departed (hence land reform and up to 1971, political progress). At the same time however, the Nixon administration moved away from any focus on "nation-building", this meant that President Thieu moved towards self-reliance, but on his terms, hence corruption etc (including an election in which he was the only candidate) remained largely untackled. From this as regards Afghanistan (and yes I know they are not the same yada yada) I would argue that the US does need in clearest terms to say that its ain't gonna be there forever (something Karl Eikenberry in his recently released cables argued thay did not think), something Obama sort of did in his West-Point speech. Along side this it needs to keep a consistent pressure on Karzai and his government to keep doing what needs to be done (as opposed to giving up once Karzai complains about sovereignty etc, or assuming they won't try any funny business until it all blows up, like over the 2009 election).

Specific mechanisms for achieving specific goals I think remains an area in which there is plenty to be done, and something which is every bit as important as COIN principles.

Apologies for my multiple spelling errors, horrendous!

I think corruption will always play a role in Afghan politics--the longest-standing ruler in recent times was ousted after...surprise, surprise, allegations of corruption.

Maybe your next book can be about Afghanistan, called "Fiasco II"

But the WSJ link was funny.

Any way we groundlings can read tCol. Kolenda's content, supposedly under discussion.

My assay on whether a writer on local Afpak affairs is engaging ground truth is to look for some reference to 'Pashtun.' Karzai is one of them. As was Omar, albeit with a 'cloak of the profit' rather than K's bloodline pedigree. Taliban was mostly them-uns. The Northern alliance warlords are not. Abdulah was not.

The ground war on both sides of the border is a Pashtun affair, at its bleeding heart. Making it about GWOT or 9/11 or US policy or opium indicates a sacrifice of situational awareness that our guys are going to bleed for.

got me also.

The link is present byt it leads nowhere,

Winning Afghanistan at the Community Level: A Rejoinder to Volney F. Warner and “C”
By Christopher D. Kolenda

The site is at: http://www.ndu.edu/inss/Press/jfq_pages/i56.htm

Try getting it at the link below:

https://docs.google.com/fileview?id=0BwjzEebLv0CzOGY3YTc2MDAtMWJkZS00NjFjLWFkZjAtYmFmNmM4NDZmNGU1&hl=en

If that doesn't work, send me an email japds1 at gmail.com and I'll send it to you.

The Japanese have been very active in Afghanistan since 2004 and are growing projects all over the country faster than any other aid agency in country. Their USAID equivalent is known as JICA and JICA operates in a manner which is 180 out from the anemic efforts of USAID or our State Department. In every ministry where the Japanese invest their yen they put an office manned by JICA FSO's who watch over every penny they donate. Not only does this allow them to ensure their funds are used as intended they are also leading their Afghan colleagues by example forcing them to increase their output, honesty, and dedication to their assigned task.

USAID and the Department of State remain behind the walls of the ultra posh US Embassy. They may venture into the Afghan ministries every now and then but when they do so they are in full Ivanhoe regalia with helmets, body armor, and a posse of armed gunmen from Blackwater watching over them as if they have stepped into the most dangerous unstable battlefield the world has ever seen. The Japanese FSO's by contrast usually wear a sport coat with tie or a nice dress (most of the JICA experts are female and darn attractive ones at that.) And of course the Japanese live in their own guesthouses on the economy not inside a gigantic walled puzzle palace full of luxury, rumor, booze, sex, and the kind of ridiculously poor threat intelligence which can only be generated by American RSO's.

We fund the Karzai government and could have our own FSO's seeded in every ministry like the Japanese do. But that would require that every department in both USAID and State actually assume a little risk and work in unheated offices with poor or no internet and eat Afghan food. That is a bridge too far for our supposedly professional foreign service folks so I guess we'll continue to lose billions of dollars we don't have.

The only way things will change in Kabul is to put the Marine Corps in charge. We are already asking them salvage the war after years of NATO bumbling and incompetence; might as well throw in salvaging the mess created by State and USAID too - they probably could handle it.