My life for another lovely year

As i try to figure out MS thesis topics....

h/t Ducks of Minerva

Iraqi Soccer

James Denselow at HuffPo has a piece on the Iraqi national soccer team, noting that the multi-sectarian/ethnic team has been widely popular, and this month have begun playing home games again for the first time since 2002.

The team includes Sunnis, Shias and Kurds, and winning the Asian cup in 2007 brought thousands on to the streets to celebrate across the country. However, this almost universal reaction to football success was brought to a bloody end by a series of Baghdad bombings that killed 50.

My own memories of the team are very much tied to watching the 2007 Asia cup final between the Ira and Saudi teams in a restraunt in Amman, Jordan. Most of the time, Iraqis in the city tried to keep thier nationality under the radar and out of the conversation, but after the team won, the were cars with Iraqi flags and lots of honking. returning to the area I was living, which was home to many more Saudis in town for the summer, the mood was decidedly less celebatory.

A modest proposal to fix Afghanistan

Ok so this is a case of me cooking up a crazy theory too late at night. I dont particularly buy it, but I think its worth poking at, so I'm opening it up for public mockery.

So one of the things that keeps coming up as people try to transfer what has worked in Iraq to Afghanistan in some version of the "Awakening", Sons of Iraq, tribal militia scheme. Nathan at Registan points out the holes in another new set of suggestions for this type of program.

This stuff is hard, and there’s enormous tension between creating and strengthening local institutions and trying to strengthen a central government with a powerful executive. It’s clear that Green gets that, and bully on him for giving the creation of a tribal engagement and militia creation strategy a whirl. What everyone involved in this effort really needs to do, however, is ask whether or not we make things harder by talking about Afghanistan’s people and society the way we do. When we talk about tribes, we imply institutions or leaders with authority over those in the same kin group. Are we really seeing much of that in Afghanistan above the level of one to a few villages?

This got me thinking about the possible ways we think about ethnic identity. If Afghanistan does have a less centralized political elemant as this passage seems to suggest, prehaps there is a better way to mobilize it than one shaped around political leaders.

There's plenty of lit. in the ethnic conflict field (particularly D. Posner's work on Africa) that suggests that ethnic divisions become politically salient only if there are institutions that incentivises one particular identity over another. So make it that when you join one of the national security services, you can identify as a particular identity. Your presence in the security force, and the success of the missions you undertake is then combined in some type of "tribal team score" that is publicly available, and translates into some type of monetary perk (he with the highest per capita recruitment gets roads first kind of deal).

Do i think this is going to make for a very good free and open society? absolutely not. It entrenches tribalism within the security forces, creates incentives that force people into the security forces against their will, is vulnerable to central government corruption to name only a few, but it seems better than the current system...

Temporary Randomness

For any of you who read though the link roll on the left side bar, you'll notice that I often drift into pointing out art, and art related posts. Normally, I feel that these are more personally interesting then reliant to the blog, but I did what to highlight Ta-Nehisi great series of pieces about art. Today's is another barn burner.

I'm always skeptical of nostalgia--even if I fall victim to it myself, at times. I think we spend too much time hand-wringing about the present, as opposed to adjusting to it. I come to what is classic from all the art of the now--Chris Claremont, Raekwon, Randall Cunningham and Double Dragon. They've helped shape my sense of what is beautiful--but they don't limit it.

I'm genuinely not sure how to feel about this. I've actually taken quiet a bit of both practical art and art history back in high school and college. A part of me has always found that nostalgic part of art very appealing, but I also can recognize that it was what made me such a lousy painter. Something to think about.

Vote or die- it CAN work both ways

Reuters reports that Izzat al-Douri, fugitive head of Saddam’s Baath party has called for Sunni insurgents to form "national, political or supreme leadership council to include all armed and unarmed resistance powers". The article claims that the move “suggesting a possible shift away from armed struggle”. Would that that were true.

One facet of Middle Eastern politics that has frequently puzzled western commentators is the lack of division between political oppositions groups and militias. Groups like Hezbollah and Hamas has been able to participate in elections while continuing to employ political violence. Even if the wide variety of Sunni groups still resisting the central government were to follow Douri’s suggestion, and band together to form a political committee, violence would not come to an end.

That’s not to say that political participation cannot serve to moderate such organizations. For instance the Muslim Brotherhood’s involvement in the elections within professional syndicates that serve as unions in Egypt has undeniably softened the group’s position. Even as an opposition bloc in parliament, the ability to gain at least some of the key demands of the insurgents may well serve to lower levels of violence. Furthermore, if this announcement is followed through on, this move may well help to bring Sunni votes to the polls in January, creating a government that has a stronger perception of legitimacy. But lessening violence doesn’t mean that the militia will disband, or that violence will cease, and by creating such unrealistic expectations, we risk missing very real, if smaller, signs of stabilization.

Crossposted at http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/08/01/you-cant-start-it-like-a-car-you-cant-stop-it-with-a-gun/

Let go of your heart, let go of your head

About a month, UNESCO smacked the US and Poland for the damage that has occurred over the last six years due to a military base being located in the ancient city of Babylon. Given the totally cost of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan in capital and lives, it may seem that throwing a hissy fit over a bunch of rocks, particularly ones that had already been tampered with by Saddam to create an archeological Disneyland, is a waste of everyone's time and energy. However, even if I can't sell you on the idea that the monuments and art of a country should be protected for their beauty and for the knowledge we gain from studying, there are political reasons that protecting this monument is good for us.

The reason why has to do with the difference between how we as Americans view such cites, and how the citizens of a country do. Blue at Afghan Quest (formally Bill and Bob's) captures this difference perfectly in a recent piece

As I roamed the shell of the palace, wandering through what was once a grand hall on the third floor, my eyes were drawn to an Afghan civilian who stood deeply considering the graffiti on the wall. I assumed that he was feeling the great sorrow of such a place, representative of the hope that Afghanistan had once held and the destruction of that same...

[I] asked him how Darulaman made him feel.

He thought for a moment, fingers on his chin. "Proud."

"Proud?" I asked, incredulous.

"Now, I am proud; and I'm thinking, ‘Do something in your life unique like this,'" he told me, "I pray to God to give me energy like this, to kick all of these insurgents out of here and I will tell them, ‘Hey, 80 or 100 years ago, they made this place. Why you made this place like this?'"

"It doesn't make you sad?" I quizzed him further, intrigued at his outlook.

"No. I feel this sorrow, but I cannot change these things that happened. But, this man, Amanullah, did a unique thing. I can do a unique thing too, inshallah."

For outsiders, antiquities are all about the past, particularly when talking about studying areas of the world that have been traditionally viewed through an Orientalist aesthetic. But for the descendents of the society that produced them, these places and items form key parts of personal identity narratives that link the individual to a historical sense of the nation. In fact, these places and things are so important to political narratives that in countries with strong ethnic and tribal divisions, like Iraq, Afghanistan, or Israel, claims about where the people you are descended from lived and what the achieved can play very specifically into division of modern political spoils.

The preservation of the past can also be way of linking to a sense of the nation that existed before the Taliban, before Saddam. A good example of this is the exhibit of pieces saved from the National Museum in Kabul by the staff before the Taliban took over. Americans didn't build the palace, and Americans didn't save this priceless collection. Afghans did. At a time when there are major concerns about the US's ability to recruit Iraqis and Afghans to take on critical security and development projects in order to ‘hold' the territory we take, we should be doing everything possible to promote Iraqi and Afghan nationalism, and that includes not destroying tangible symbols of patriotism.

Crossposted at http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/08/01/let-go-of-you-heart-let-go-of-you-head/

What's happening to the monarch of the Sea?

Yesterday the British government launched Iraq Inquiry committee, just as the last troops were pulled back to Kuwait by today in compliance with the British-Iraqi SOFA, charged with”

…considering the UK’s involvement in Iraq, including the way decisions were made and actions taken, to establish, as accurately as possible, what happened and to identify the lessons that can be learned. Those lessons will help ensure that, if we face similar situations in future, the government of the day is best equipped to respond to those situations in the most effective manner in the best interests of the country…

The Inquiry is not a court of law and nobody is on trial. But I want to make something absolutely clear. This Committee will not shy away from making criticism. If we find that mistakes were made, that there were issues which could have been dealt with better, we will say so frankly.

The Washington Post is reporting that those called will be former Prime minister Tony Blair, and in contrast to what had previously been discussed sessions with be public whenever possible. The article also stated:

John Chilcot… said that "the Anglo-American relationship is one of the most central parts of this inquiry" and that the panel hoped to have "discussions" with Americans involved in the war.

I was reminded forcibly of Patrick Porter’s piece on Kings of War from earlier this week, discussing the role that the “special relationship” has played in continued British involvement in both wars:

For the UK, the war in Afghanistan, like the war in Iraq, is part of a grand strategic goal – to sustain a relationship with the United States.

In the debate over invading Iraq, Tony Blair was explicit on this point. The UK was not only supporting the US because it agreed with its case for removing Saddam. Britain was participating also to shape, lead and advise the American superpower – to promote British influence, to integrate America’s war effort within a multilateral (if not formally sanctioned and legal) coalition, to guard against a reversion back to American isolationism, and to align America’s war against terrorism within an internationalist and liberal framework…

At the level of defence policy and military capability, senior officers articulate a parallel desire to make Britain’s military power deliver the UK a seat at the top table, to help Britain ‘punch above its weight’...

For the Anglo-American relationship, there is a paradox in the war on terror. Though Britain participated in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan partly to keep its credibility and pay a ‘blood price’ to sustain the relationship, the strain and difficulty of those wars effectively endangers that credibility. Britain’s political will, the muscle and effectiveness of its armed forces, and its capacity to translate highly-regarded military force into strategic success, all of this is placed on the line, and repeatedly. Undertaken to fortify the Atlantic alliance and Britain’s status as a heavyweight junior partner, the war instead jeopardises it, and the Brits feel forced to rescue it.

I think the specific note this early in the proceeding of the inquiry board that the “special relationship” is within the bounds of the investigation speaks, a least to some degree, to a more serious desire to question whether the relationship should remain as prominent in calculations of British Strategic interests in the future. Given the way the political climate is leaning in Britain, I think that decision is going to rest with David Cameron and the Tories, rather than the beleaguered Brown administration. If Obama wants to keep our strongest ally, this might be a good time to make nice.

Crossposted to http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/07/31/old-friends-sat-on-a-park-bench-like-book-ends/

Afghanistan review: the comparison edition (corrected)

As Spencer has already reported, the past week has been filled with chatter from the think tank advisors returning from Gen. McChrystal’s Afghanistan review. Quite a lot of blog-o-sphere rage has focused on Andrew Exum’s remarks , noting striking differences in policy recommendations and observations he is articulating in this newest round of interviews and those he espoused before leaving. Josh Foust in particular has a nice side-by-side piece showing key changes in Ex’s recommendations (as well as some serious internal inconsistencies in his articulation of them).

Jari over at The Stupidest Man on Earth also points out that these statements are very different in tone from those made by Tony Cordesman over the last few days. One possibility here is certainly that Ex has drunk the Kool-Aid. But as Josh points out in his post, spending time on the ground can create very real changes in attitude, so I thought it was worth doing some comparison work between Ex, Cordesman, and Biddle’s before and after statements, to see where the changes are, particularly given the boss-man’s reporting that those in the review was far from united in their perspectives.

While Cordesman has reams of publication devoted to Afghanistan, the most substantial analysis and policy recommendation paper from the last few months in my mind is Winning Afghanistan*. While the total report is nearly 200 pages long, key recommendations and observations include the integration of “the civil and military dimensions of the war into sustainable efforts that take account of the real world conditions in both [Afghanistan and Pakistan]” (pg vi); more, and more honest, governance from all levels of the Afghan government; more development aid; and “far more coherence in international effort to make this possible” (p vi). While speaking to the need for a radical expansion of both the ANA and ANP, the report is particularly concerned with the need to provide training to police units with both the specific paramilitary skills and the loyalty to the duties and responsibilities of their position and national government that they need to do their jobs. There is also a substantial discussion of the failure to define what the ‘hold’ and ‘build’ phases will look like, and how to prepare the Afghan Security Forces to take them over in a reasonable amount of time. Finally, he notes that there is a decisive need to change if we want to be on track for even a ‘slow win,’ and that the necessary resources and direction for that change must come from the US rather than relying on coalition partners.

So what did we hear at yesterday’s press conference ? (Note: There isn’t a transcript available yet, so I’ve transcribed a good-sized chunk here sorry for any errors):

The fact is, we have to go far beyond the normal limits of counterinsurgency, we’re involved in an exercise in armed nation building, and we’re doing it at a time when we have to see Afghanistan find ways to… create an effective government, create effective forces, and simultaneously meet challenges like al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and pressures from outside powers.

Above all, this is a war shaped not by strategy, but by systematic neglect and years of under-resourcing… Seven years after we entered the war what is most striking about Afghanistan is how many people are still acting like this was the first year in Afghanistan. How many of the exercises are disconnected and theoretical, or are involved with experiments... And you see these problems are much more critical on the civil side then they are on the military side...

… What should be an integrated civil-military effort, and a focus on winning the war in the field, is a dysfunctional wasteful mess, focused on Kabul and crippled by bureaucratic divisions. It is further crippled by Afghan corruption, power brokering, and by the individual national caveats and tensions within and between the individual members of ISAF and NATO.

…You need to refocus the intelligence effort to focus on the nature of the insurgency, not simply finding threat forces in the field and defeating them...

We, the United States, are going to have to provide the resources if we want to win. Most of the incremental resources will have to come from us. This means very substantial budget increases, it means more bridge combat troops, and it means financing both the civilian effort need in the field, and a near doubling of Afghan National Security Forces. Those forces not only have to be doubled to provide a minimum level of coverage, we have to face the fact that we do not need civil police in a country that has no courts in something like 95% of the villages… and where the police cannot survive unless they have paramilitary capabilities and outside support…

And finally, let me just make one last point. When we talk about winning, we are not talking about transforming Afghanistan into some mirror image of the West, or accelerating it to the point where it becomes a developed country within the foreseeable future. We’re talking about basic security, basic stability basic economic opportunity for the Afghans, and creating a country which will be free of international terrorism. One of the problems we all face in Afghanistan is that we have set impossible goals, according to impossible time frames, which Afghanistan cannot possibly meet. We need to serve the real needs of the people in achievable ways. If we pursue a dream, we will lose the war.

What’s striking here is that very little has changed other than Cordesman’s level of aggravation. The key flaws that he points to are the same, but no one seems to be following through. After seven years of experimentation, we are still forced to “experiment” in Helmand to figure out necessary troop levels and strategies for the ‘hold’ and ‘build’ phases.

One small change in position that showed up in the Q & A which I think is worth highlighting is Cordesman’s point that Pakistan is not the only country that shelters terrorists, and that we ignore growing situations in countries like Yemen and Somalia for the sake of presenting a conveniently unified description of Af-Pak. Given that Cordesman was one of the first to push for the inclusion of Pakistan as a necessary second side of the coin, I think this is a point that is worth paying some serious attention to as we keep talking about our CT and COIN goals in the conflict that he sees a need to turn to a more international CT agenda rather than one that looks only at Af-Pak.

So what is so different about Exum’s after action reports? Actually, in general I think he’s often saying very similar things to Cordesman, but because there is more of a disconnect between his recommendations in Triage and the post-review interviews, he is sounding less coherent. I think the changes in his conception of what a metric of population stability should be have, in fact, changed, most likely because “the population may not be targeted kinetically in the way that it was in Iraq, but it’s certainly being targeted.” This is why we do fieldwork, kids, so we know when it’s appropriate to draw analogies to previous conflicts and when it’s not.

On the question of what the future ‘hold’ and ‘build’ stages should look like, I think again what we’re seeing is that Ex has not really changed his opinion, so much as he can’t reconcile facts on the ground to the way he thinks things should run. The plan as laid out in Triage called for an ink spot approach, which is what seems to be working in areas where we’ve had some success (see this great article from the Army Times about life on one of those remote bases), but now that we have a major kinetic operation underway in Helmand, the situation on the ground is going to require some other approach. I think that this illogical sting of assertions:

We’ve got very limited international forces in Afghanistan, and we’re actually not using them to their best effect if we’ve got them ‘holding.’ So if the Marines in Helmand are holding terrain right now, that’s a waste of resources. The ‘hold’ function should be executed by a robust Afghan national security force.

is actually the result of Ex now agreeing with Cordesman about the necessity of a massive surge of Afghan forces to a greater degree then Triage articulated, but having to deal with what is looking like a premature major operation. Frankly, I think neither man has much hope we’ll hold the ground we’re taking now, although neither says it. The only reason Cordesman doesn’t sound as discombobulated is because he is speaking about these issues from a much broader perspective than Ex, which allows him to write Helmand off as another ‘experiment’ needing ‘improvisations,’ pointing out that the operation was planned before the new team was in place. However, during the Q&A he too argues for a focus on ANA involvement in ‘hold’ ops in later operations.

Another point the men seem to now agree on that was not really discussed in Triage is the need to change how we conceive of what relevant intelligence is. Ex now claims that:

Our intelligence and the way that we gather intelligence continues to be focused on the enemy. What we need to know to be successful in Afghanistan is not just the size, disposition and composition of the Quetta Shura Taliban, or the Haqqani network, but we need to understand local dynamics.

Again I think this represents a growing realization of just how different Iraq and Afghanistan are, and how that has twisted strategy recommendations. This is a very old hobby horse of Cordesman, particularly to the extent it involves poor government reporting and assessment, so I’m not surprised he got there first.

Prior to the review, Biddle had been perhaps the most negative of the three on the future of the conflict, and his piece in The American Interest drew plenty of critiques over the last month. Asked specifically if he had revisions to make to his comments given what he had seen, he stated:

My sense of the situation is stronger now than it was certainly before leaving. My basic view remains, however, that the case for making a go at this is stronger than that for cutting our losses and withdrawing. But the argument I made in the American Interest article was that it was a fairly close call, that this wasn't a slam dunk either way… And I certainly continue to think that either course of action--staying or withdrawing--has important problems. On balance staying is the better course, but only if we're prepared to resource it correctly. The weakest argument is staying and under-resourcing it. That creates the opportunity to lose slowly, which is the worst of the three possible approaches.

Basically, I think he has changed the least, and that both Exum and Cordesman have come to agree with Biddle. His frank assessment that the necessary triage approach is going to include losing territory in order to hold what we have really isn’t all that different from what Ex’s triage report called for, but it is willing to articulate costs in much less idealized terms.

And that generally seems to be the takeaway. We have the right plan, but there is going to be a substantial (and possibly unbearable) cost to implement it, and facts on the ground are going to mean we lose some of our current half complete missions before we can start winning.

*Full discloser: my boyfriend was one of the coauthors of the report. However all analysis here is my own. [ed apologies for neglecting to have the disclosure on the original post]

Crossposted to http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/2009/07/31/theres-something-happening-here-but-what-it-is-aint-exactly-clear/

I can haz real blog?

Hey gag, sorry for the short notice but for today and tomorrow I'll be guest blogging for always awesome Spence Ackerman over at http://attackerman.firedoglake.com/. I'll cross post things here, but you should come say hello, and check out the work of my coblogger Tyson.

Catagories are important (or "In which I jump up and down on Michel Cohen")

The COIN community has gotten a bit insulare for its own good, and Michel Cohen as played a useful role as a precictent naysayer (though I think these pieces by Rory Steward and Andrew Bacevich are more compelling in general). However, he frequently seems to have issues understanding current catagorizations in way that make him talk past many of the other serious people writing on the issue.

One of Cohen's recent posts points to why the question of classification is actually very very important, even when it seems like an internal, circular point of utter nonsense (which dont get me wrong, it is sometimes). Over the course of the post Cohen points to both the US involvement in the Philippines and the American Civil war as instances of successful counterinsurgencies campaigns that did not utilize modern pop-centric COIN models. Problem is, neither is.

While both conflict would probably class as Irregular Warfare under modern conventions, the Philippines were a war of colonization, and the American Civil War was... well, a civil war. in both cases America was committed to long term projects of governance, either through pseudo-colonialism (at levels that are just nowhere in the current reasonable discussion about the futures of Iraq or Afghanistan), or through the direct manipulation of the political and economic system of the South that was achieve but Reconstruction Legislation. But these aren't COIN related political strategies, any more then the fairly brutal suppression of the population through events like Sherman's March to the Sea are in line with COIN related military tactics. By miscatagorizing the conflicts, really false analogies are being drawn that just don't serve to advance a very legitimate debate about how we should proceed.

Critique of Gourley

Sean Gourley’s work presented in a TED lecture looks at a wide range of conflicts and finds a surprisingly regular pattern, claiming the number of people killed in a attack is dependent on the frequency of the attack, because the tactics necessitated by insurgency nudge organizations to a ‘ideal’ organizational structure (α=2.5), which allows for optimization of capabilities.

He then shows a break-down of how this hypothetical “organizational structure” variable, which claims to represent the coherence and size of the various subgroups, has shifted in Iraq. Starting with a relatively unified opposition to the US’s invasion, his model shows that by 2002/3 the number of splinter groups within the insurgency had spiked up to what his finding show is an ideal level of ‘structure’. Following the ’06 elections, his model than shows a further splintering of groups for the next year, until the start of the surge, at which point α drops back down, only to rise back up. (Chart is at 6:48 in the video).

His theory is that when α is high or low, we are better able to best insurgencies, either by bringing unified groups to the negotiating table or crushing small groups, and that the ideal organization of insurgencies, revealed in the patterns of attacks, will be consistent in all conflicts. While intriguing, there are some quiet serious questions I have about this theory.

First of all, the idea that violence as a broad concept follows power-law distribution is not only not new (as noted by Drew Conway regarding violence more generally, and this study that looks at terrorist attacks only, both worth a glance in their own right), but also not terribly surprising. Smaller incidents generally cost less than larger ones. In a shot out, killing more people needs you need more men, in the case of an IED more casualties require a higher level of technical proficiency and more materials. Man, experience and materials are all expensive so can only be used a finite number of times.

That of course doesn’t mean that the work couldn’t still be useful to the discipline, particularly the idea of a mathematically ideal type of organizational structure; however, I think it is this ability to intuit the basic finding that there are likely to be more small attacks and fewer large attacks that Ricks is responding to in his pieces, when he asks why this research should be seen as useful. Gourley responds to these critiques by claiming:

With this new approach… We can understand the underlying structure of an insurgency i.e. how an insurgency 'decides' to distribute its forces (weapons, people, money etc). Further, we can explain why this kind of insurgent structure emerges in multiple different conflict zones around the world. We can estimate the number of autonomous insurgent groups operating within a theatre of war. We can monitor and track a conflict through time to see how either side’s strategies are affecting the state of the war. Finally we can compare the mathematical patterns of current ongoing wars with past wars to estimate how close they are to ending.

Well all this sounds great, but does it actually work?

The first problem is the source of the data. Not only does media usually not report ‘failed’ attacks, potentially lowering the reported number of incidences, they often miscode violence in confusing ways. Kalyvas (article gated but abstract here, or in book form) has done a lot of work highlighting the extent to which micro level killings are coded by elites (including the media) to read as 'insurgent' or 'ethnic' violence, instead of homicide or gang violence. Expecting that bias, the problem in the data is not just that failures are excluded, but also that successes are over reported.

The second issue is partially caused by a lack of clarity in the data presented. Because the data tables aren’t available on the lecture slides and I couldn’t find a paper citing this data, I’m actually unclear on what exactly he means by number and size of incidents. Given the difficulty he had in obtaining date from the Pentagon, he has to be looking at more than just coalition casualties*. Assuming that they include other security personnel, insurgent dead, or even civilians, how are Gourley and co. coding the number killed? This isn’t just nitpicking, the study means deferent things when placed in actual context depending on what variables he’s using.

Is the question about the number of casualties on the side of the Counter insurgents (which in and of itself is going to be a contentious definition when coding), as inflicted by the insurgents? Given that the causal story that is told about the relationship is one about the organization of the insurgency, that coding would make some sense (and seems to be the reading that Drew is taking). However, he’s applied the same model to conflicts with 2, 3, or more independent and active parties involved in the war, with no attempt to distinguish what’s going on. Given that there are often multiple factions that are just as often fighting each other as the COIN force (which isn’t necessarily unified itself) assuming a simple binary conflict is intensely problematic, particularly in cases like Iraq where there is quite a lot of insurgent on insurgent violence. To me, that either indicates that the models is being applied without really thinking about how the case fits into the parameter, or that in fact what he is interested in is the total number of deaths, on both sides and including civilians that occur during a conflict.

Leaving this problem aside for a moment, Drew Conway (who is much better at modeling then me) points out the gap between the observed distribution of attacks, and the causal mechanism that Gourley suggests:

Power-law distributions can provide a categorical approximation of a network's underlying structure because in these cases the distribution in question refers to the frequency of edge counts among nodes, a structural measurement. Even for networks, however, the actual underlying structures of networks following a power-law can vary wildly. Attack frequencies, on the other hand, have nothing to do with structure. In what way, then, is this metric valid for measuring the structure or distribution of insurgent forces?

In many ways this in not only a modeling problem, it goes back to my point about insurgencies not being as simple a structure as this model assumes. Gourley’s understanding of insurgent structure is far too simplistic; when the reality is that the social networks that support these groups vary widely in sophistication and resources without necessarily varying in size. Because there is no effort to compare α to any other indicators of insurgent structure one could look at (ex. Number of groups claiming credit for attacks, existence of sections of the organization devoted to nonviolent efforts like social services, or qualitative accounts from intelligence about the nature of the structure) there is little effort made to see if the narrative α presents holds up. To take the example of Iraq, the fragmentation of the insurgency following the 06 elections that is seen in Gourley’s findings doesn’t match up terribly well to the narrative that has been told by observers. Without some qualitative work to back up the narrative, its hard to take such sweeping findings too seriously.

*At least I assume such based on colleagues’ attempts to gather data of a similar nature

New fighting force agains al-Qaeda?

BBC reports that a major Tuareg faction in Mali is cooperating with government forces in order to take out al-Qaeda, who uses the deserts that the Tuareg traditionally travel to hid bases

The BBC's Martin Vogl in Mali's capital Bamako says the Malian and Algerian governments will both be pleased to have Tuareg forces as part of their offensive against al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The Tuareg know how to operate in the desert perhaps better than anyone else and could be the government's best hope of beating al-Qaeda in the region, he says...

Under the deal, special units of fighters from the Alliance for Democracy and Change (ADC) are to be sent to the desert to tackle al-Qaeda.

Although the ADC signed a deal to end its rebellion three years ago, one of its factions is still active.

The Tuareg, a historically nomadic people living in the Sahara and Sahel regions of North Africa, have had militant groups in Mali and Niger engaged in sporadic armed struggles for several decades.

They have argued that their region has been ignored by the government in the south of the countries.

But there has been a history of animosity between the Tuareg groups and al-Qaeda.

I haven't seen this covered much in the usual insurgency/terrorism roundups, but this is both a really good example of how different insurgent groups can be turned against one another. Hopefully, we can keep going with this type of tactic in or CT efforts against al-Qaeda.

While it may be naive on my part (for starters, i dont know a whole lot about Tuareg insurgencies), this also seems to be a case where CT collaboration may help ease other cleavages in the society that lead to insurgency. Given that participation in military efforts are going to require that money and equipment from the government make it out to the desert, these operations may be able to ease the resource gap that is perpetuating the conflict. or it may be another Sons of Iraq program, in which little real integration or resource distribution is achieved.

What maybe Friedman should have writen

Spencer did a nice job pointing out the stupidity of Friedman's column on Mon to prevent what would have been the blog equivilant of watching my head explode, but just to make it even more apparent how idiotic the colum was I thought the contrast between what old TF chose to turn out, and what DangerRoom produced from the same press trip was worth a look.

TF's big takeaway from a trip to see a girls school opened?:

Indeed, Mortenson’s efforts remind us what the essence of the “war on terrorism” is about. It’s about the war of ideas within Islam — a war between religious zealots who glorify martyrdom and want to keep Islam untouched by modernity and isolated from other faiths, with its women disempowered, and those who want to embrace modernity, open Islam to new ideas and empower Muslim women as much as men. America’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were, in part, an effort to create the space for the Muslim progressives to fight and win so that the real engine of change, something that takes nine months and 21 years to produce — a new generation — can be educated and raised differently.

Nathan Hodge uses the same event to discuss:

The relatively secure environment of the Panjshir means that the PRT can undertake and oversee more reconstruction projects than any other team. Burns said his team had done 80 site visits in three months; sometimes they can visit a dozen project sites in one day. In Kabul, by contrast, he was lucky if he got out once a week...

Not everyone is fan of the military’s embrace of the humanitarian mission. Since their inception in late 2002 as “Joint Regional Teams,” many in the aid and development community have worried that the PRTs were encroaching on a traditional humanitarian space, blurring the line between civilian aid work and military operations...

In the Panjshir, however, the aim seems to be keeping this mission as low-key as possible. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t risks. In late May, a convoy carrying members of the Panjshir PRT was hit by a suicide car bomber while it crossed through neighboring Kapisa province; four members of the team were killed, including the commander, Lt. Col. Mark Stratton.

Hmmm... you mean you can report on things that the public may not know about? particularly when you write for one of the most widely read periodicals in the world? Interesting...

Oversight in the wake of the F-22

With all the noise today over the Obama-Gates victory in quashing Congressional plans to expand the F-22 program, I hope that this isn't going to be the end of serious discussion about defense appropriations, and what the role of both civilian leadership of the defense department, and congress should be.

There has been relatively little done to improve the oversight of the War in Afghanistan, even as the resources devoted to the conflict have dramatically increased this year. While there has been limited lip service to the need to expand the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan (SIGAR), this Mother Jones piece is the first I've seen in a while to highlight how short that effort has fallen:

In March, when President Obama unveiled his new Afghanistan strategy, he promised "robust funding" for Fields' anti-corruption efforts. But Fields says his FY2010 budget of $23 million is still about $8 million short of what he needs. Instead of the 90 employees Fields asked for, SIGAR has 44. It has produced just one audit. By way of contrast, the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) released more than a dozen audits in its first year.

maybe some of that 2 billion that was just cut out could be redirected here, huh?

It also may be worth thinking about how the Brits are handling some of the same problems, in light of a former Defense Secretary telling politicians to get out of the ring and not to 'second guess' the military or behave like armchair generals'". You think the debate is nasty over here.

New ideal vacation plans are made

umbrella hockey is a particular favorite


h/t to miss toddles

the title of the song

So I’ve enjoyed Waltz’s series of posts talking about how to apply IR theory to personal relationships. While these are all fine and good, they don’t really approach the level of awesome of the raging CNAS and friends debate over autotune and Jay-Z vs. the Game that has immerged in the last few weeks (original Jay-Z vs. the Game post from Marc Lynch here and a summary of responses here. I think I’ve spent the better part of the yesterday having arguments about this.

And don’t get me wrong, I think this is a really entertaining way of modeling unequal power.

Want to talk about the persistent power of insurgents? Well then you can talk about how personal experience can cause you to side with the oppiset side that your sectarian identification would indicate

Want to talk about identity signaling? Well then you can debate how the intentional use of auto-tune in the future could act as a signifier of pro or anti Jay-Z sympathy, in contrast to a firmer signal of alliance like direct lyrical attacks on him and his.

Want to talk about alliance formation in unstable states? Well then you can debate about whether the leagues of the anti-Jay-Z will form a coalition to rival the existing hegemony (think of a hip hop EU), or merely a sea of rogue states with which the dominate power must play wack-a-mole, and what the potential costs of each scenario are.

However, I think one thing that’s getting lost in the entertainment value of this series, is that at the end of the day this is a model, in the same tradition of grand strategy IR modeling Lynch could have said big country X and small country Y and we could all be having exactly the same argument (lord knows I know nothing about hip hop, and that didn’t stop me). This one is cute and entertaining, so it gets written about, but at the end of the day Jay-Z and the game have the same problem that most models do. They are, by definition simplifications of the actual complexities of the International system.

For those readers in charge of training debate, MUN or polsci undergrads, may I suggest this as the new test grounds for establishing baseline knowledge and intelligence of recruits about alliance dynamics, signaling and basic IR models? But for those who are crafting current policy, I hope there is more depth of knowledge expected about how we tailor models to the particular arena before it is turned into policy.

al-Qeada in countries without US troops

Today's times has an interesting piece on the North African branch of al-Qeada, with the most important line a few paragraphs in:

American and European security and counterterrorism officials say the attacks may signal the return of foreign fighters from the Iraq war, where they honed their bomb-making skills.

In some ways this is actually good news about how things are going in Iraq. If the Times analysis is right, this means that Iraq has shifted from being the center of a a global jihad, to being a local insurgency, not only in the view of the mainstream, but also for the jihadis themselves.

Islamist and social aid in Pakistan

Peter Marton at State Failure and the NYTimes are both busy pointing out that one of the key thinks that we should be watching for is the way in with Islamist groups, particularly the Taliban are publicizing the distribution of aid in Pakistan.

… ideas of winning back popularity with a big show of airlifts of American assistance on the scale of American earthquake relief to Kashmir in 2005 were rebuffed, and not only by the Pakistanis.

American nongovernmental organizations in Pakistan discouraged high-profile deliveries of United States government aid because anti-American sentiment was too widespread and the security risk to Americans in the camps was too high... There were many Taliban in the displaced camps, and they believed the Pakistani military was fighting against them in Swat on orders from Washington, the official said.

While a fair point in being made that the restrictions on Americans (and our western Allies) publicizing the work we are doing in the region, he also doesn’t do enough to recognize the long history of social welfare projects in gathering support for the Islamist groups. This goes well beyond the immediate concerns of workers proselytizing at aid stations, and is worth thinking about how these efforts are going to play into our strategy in Pakistan.

Provision of social services, including charitable aid, education and health services is a staple project of Islamist groups, both historically and in other areas of the Islamic world (for instance in the Palestinian refugee camps). Beyond creating immediate recruitment opportunities but forming a patronage network (particularly among the families of individual members), these service also highlight the government’s failure to provide for the poor. This is particularly critical in places like Pakistan and Afghanistan were suspicion of corruption has played a big part in the high level of distrust for the central regime.

Aid provision by extremists can also undermine the regime, because they are often forced to recognize extremist groups in order to co-opt at least some portion of the credit for social programs. A good example of this can be seen in the Jordanian states acceptance of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950’s and 60’s in part because they needed to fold Brotherhood schools into the state system to prevent the formation of a better endowed rival to the state system*

Two things currently hinder the US taking advantage of the same benefits of social service provision. First are the gag orders that prevent us from getting the recognition for emergency aid that we should be. This is basically a straightforward diplomatic problem

The more complicated bit to fix is learning to mimic the way in which social services run by extremists for strong networks then can be utilized later for recruitment and sympathy. Clinics, schools and social organizations form connection not only between the recipients of aid (who are often lower class), but also between the middle class individuals who work there, or relied on the service as children. American needs to learn how to set up our efforts so that ties between American workers and middle class locals can develop.

*Full discloser- I wrote my BA thesis on Muslim Brotherhood services in Egypt and Jordan. You’re going to get this type of example a lot.

Israel's ambassador to the US

Michel Oren was one of the speakers at this years Aspen Ideas Festival. The interview is a really striking demonstration of just why this man is so good for the job. This is a really articulate explanation of why Israel should matter to American's, not just out of guilt, but because of very specific American values such as responsibility that are embodied in the Oren's conception of the Israeli state. It certainly a more compelling vision then that then is being put forward by Bibi at the moment.

Contractors at home

One of the bizarre side issues I've picked up over the years is in how private contractor work in peace and stability operations. In this context there has been plenty of talk over the years about the ways in which improper oversight is seriously endangering US military and civilian personal and strategy. What hasnt been mentioned in the same context is that many of this issues also come into play when looking at homeland security operations.

The Post has a piece today about a GAO investigation (original report here) of the effectiveness of contracted security on government building state side that highlights some petty shocking flaws in the system. While I think security related contractors are a fact of life that are here to stay (and have lots of friends in the business who I greatly respect) we clearly need to get a better hand on how we organize oversight.

CNAS is cooler then youll ever be

New today, Marc Lynch of abu aardvark is now joining CNAS.

also in CNAS (well former CNAS) being awesome, this piece on Michele Flounoy is an interesting look at her life and work. Sure, its shallowly feminest for me to be interested in her especially because shes a woman in a field that has been dominated by men, but one of the things that has interested me about the rise of COIN is how many women are influentual in the top minds of the field, and how many women are at the front of the armed services attemptes to put the ideas into practice.

Police Training in Palestine

One of the big discussion in both Iraq and Afghanistan has been how the US can go about training an army and police force that is both effective in assisting with (and eventually running) COIN operations, and able to resist corruption. However there's a profitable model in Palestine Security Forces, which hasn't gotten much attention (likely because of COIN scholars general leariness of all things Israel/Palestine as a case*).

Two recent pieces highlight some of the possible problem we will encounter in current efforts (and there are some great blogs that trace on the ground efforts), even if we can manage to come up with a training regime that works.

Marc Lynch reviews Khaled Meshaal, the head of the Hamas political bureau, speech from last week. Most other commenters have focused on his offer to negotiate with Obama, but Lynch also notes

Meshaal called General Dayton's security forces the greatest obstacle to Palestinian reconciliation and called for his removal. Many in the U.S. will take this as a sign that Dayton's mission is succeeding, and that Hamas is growing worried about the increasing competence and strength of the Palestinian Authority's security forces...

But serious questions about the role and future of these security forces need to be asked -- not just because Meshaal raises them, but because his concerns reflect widespread Palestinian sentiments. It is now common to refer to... the Palestinian security forces as "the Dayton forces." This is not meant as a compliment...

There are major questions about the mission of these new Palestinian security forces... Is it something akin to the logic of COIN, establishing security and population security in order to provide the breathing space for political reconciliation? Is it to target Hamas and its infrastructure, as the Israelis demand and as seems to have been happening of late...

There are also real concerns about the implications of a rapidly improving security sector combined with hapless, inefficient and dilapidated civilian ministries.

At the same time, the Post is running pieces that focus on the new Counter-terrorism efforts that these forces are undertaking, as well as some details about the efforts that Lynch mentions. Given the problems with this (relitively successful) expantion of the security forces, it seems like more thought needs to be given to what we hope to form in Iraq and Afghanistan.

*dont get me run I fully understand the intense emotional baggage that comes with the topic... but its still cutting off our nose in en effort not to break out.

Follow-up on Honduras

Mark Goldberg points out that despite striking similarities in event in Honduras and Niger, the governments reactions to the coup are starkly different and, Niger isn't really being reported on

But there are some striking similarities between the unfolding situations in Honduras and Niger. To wit:

Country A) Elected President wants to serve beyond the limits of his constitutionally mandated term. Country B) Elected President wants to serve beyond the limits of his constitutionally mandated term.

Country A) Elected President wants to hold a referendum to change the constitution Country B) Elected President wants to hold a referendum to change the constitution

Country A) Supreme Court decides this is not legal. Country B) Supreme Court decides this is not legal.

Here, however, is where the similarities seem to end.

Country A) The military, backed by opposition leaders, ousts the president.

Country B) The president declares a state of emergency, dissolves the supreme court and arrests the main opposition leader.

A, is of course, Honduras. B is Niger, where aformentioned opposition leader accused President Mamadou Tandja of carrying out the equivalent of a coup. And, it would appear, President Tandja is coming under fire from both the European Union and Economic Community of West African States, both of which have cautioned Tandja over his proposed term-extension. The African Union may also pile on when it meets in Libya for a summit today.

In Niger, the military has so far stayed neutral. But is this the sort of case where the military can act as an check on the power of the president and as a guarantor of the constitution?

In a lot of ways this is getting at the same point I was making earlier about the events in Honduras having precedent in Turkey.

CANADIA DAY

basically my favorite holiday ever, if only cause of certain member of this blogs readership, who firmly recommends this Op-ed.

In the mean time....
Some Canadian culture


On the trials and tribulation of dual-citizenship:


and last but not least, a stirring rendition of "O Canada":


More serious blogging later.

Media Coverage in Afghanistan

Christian over at Ghosts of Alexander has the interesting idea of tracking this story about the killing of the Kandahar Police Chief to see how information comes out of Afghanistan. While his analysis of the project will be out later this week, Registan also has an overview of reporting on the event. He repeats that analysis of a reporter friend in Kandahar “there is a feeling of ‘the final straw’ in people’s reactions to the news.".

...the initial reports were wrong, but that seems to drive opinion in many parts of Afghanistan—whatever you heard first, so it is. Some unreported context to the incident...who knows how that might have affected things as well.

Did the U.S. or Coalition have a hand—even a very indirect one—in today’s killing? We won’t know for a bit... If—and this is a big “if,” as we just don’t know yet—this turns out to have connections to SF-types, the General McChrystal’s much ballyhooed push for a lighter special operations footprint is certainly off to a great start.

This is not only an important story its an important reminder of the role that western media plays in establishing local opinion about events.

Ikhwan

Three high ranking members of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt were arrested over the weekend, including Dr. Abdel-Moneim Abu el-Fotouh, Member of the Executive Bureau of the Muslim Brotherhood, and Secretary-General of the Arab Doctors’ Federation, a notable reformer and strong voice of moderation within the party. The Arabist notes:

Aboul Fotouh in particular is one of the MB’s most popular figures, respected well beyond their ranks for his intellectual calibre and moderation. Considering all [three] of these people were involved in the fundraising drive and aid effort to Gaza, and the Egyptian government has just reopened the border, one wonders whether there’s any connection... I should add that several companies close to those arrested and other prominents MBs have been shut down, dealing a further financial blow to the group.

However, 13 members were released yesterday after a court declared them innocent of money laundering. Official statements by the Ikhwan characterizedthe new arrests not only as a continuation of the regimes oppression of the group's at "reform, coordinating with all the political and national powers in Egypt, and forming a coalition with the Egyptian masses."

Additionally "Detentions emphasize the failure of the existing regime in various fields, whereas its inability to bring security to the nation as these deeds are directly in the service of our US-Zionist enemies tarnishing Egypt's reputation internally and abroad." Given the language of the statment and the arrested man's connection to Gaza relief efforts that is mentioned in several of the statements, its seems fairly clear that the Brotherhood is inclided to agree with teh Arabist about the reasons for the arrests.

Events both in Gaza and in Egypt have positioned the Brotherhood to wield more electoral cout then they have in quiet some time, and in many cases they are calling for democratization. I wonder if events in Iran, where many in the west have strongly supported a coalition of protesters that includes moderat Islamist parties, might shape events in Egypt, eccelerating the formation of a coalition to demand Mubark steps down in the coming years.

Coitus Interruptus in Iraq

Well its pull out day in Iraq. In accordance with the SoFA, US forces had until today to withdrawal from urban areas (in fact it was announced that Iraqi and US forces were prepared for the change over early). The recent upsurge in violence has many concerned about what the ramification of the agreement, negotiated last year, will be. There have also been some last minute adjustments, including allowing the US forces to continued to utilize MRAPs while on daylight patrol, instead of limiting forces to the use of more lightly armored Humvees as had been agree to originally.

Below is a list of predictions, and explanations of why this is a important (or unimportant) milestone from a range of sources, offering various levels of reassurance that though the sky may be falling, it isnt going to today:

Tom Ricks may be the most depressing of the lot, arguing:

Yes, Iraqi units are better trained and equipped than in the past. But that was never the problem. Rather, the point of failure was political. Sunni death squads and Shiite militias knew what they were fighting for, while an Iraqi soldier didn't necessarily. My worry is that I don't see the political situation as being much different than it has in the past.

While hes right to point out the current political weakness, as well as the possibility for increased corruption with the withdrawal of the Americans from the cities, its just not clear what he thinks would have been a viable alternative, given the fact we couldnt negotiate a slower time table into the SoFA, either last fall when it was written or in the previous alterations.

Peter Feaver at Shadow Government has more specific concerns in the same vein, particularly that the SoFA is overly ambitious, and that the upsurge in violence could be the trigger for a wave of violence that "at least in 2006, the terrorists were able to use... to seize the initiative".

He is particularly concerned by many of the points raised by Stephen Biddle in this piece, who strongly advocates a slower withdrawal than that provided for in the SoFA timetable, but in the end is cautiously reassured by Odierno's faith in the timetable, given his previous skepticism (this piece is a few days old so it isnt clear whether the complement of the withdrawal ahead of deadline would have further cemented this view).

A fairly similar view has also been expressed by Anthony Cordesman, and the gang at CNAS, both of whom still thinks we'll need a long term presence in the region. However both these pieces as well as the Biddle piece are taking a much longer view then Feaver is giving them credit for when he claims that pulling out from the cities may be the straw that breaks the camel's back.

There also a good critic of their long term assessment over at Musings on Iraq, though I think he simplifies their position in unfair ways. but thats for another post.

Ibn Muqawama (subing in for Exum) at Abu Muqawama responds to concerns over the uptick by noting that there has not (as yet) been any sign that the attacks are triggering the type of sectarian reprisals that were so problematic 3 years ago.

Instead, he says we should focus on helping efforts to better integrate the sects into the government, particularly the Kurds which he thinks is the more likely fault line for the next round of violence. I've been holding for the last 5 years that the "next" round of conflict was going to involve the Kurds, and, with a few exceptions, I've been wrong over and over again, so Im withholding judgment on this one. At any rate, this issues arent ones that US military strength can do much to solve so he doesnt see a need to slow the withdrawal plan.

Marc Lynch at Abu Aardvark seems to think that this is actually a false marker, seeing as how we've been drawing down our troops for months now. While he applauds the effort Obama and the commanders in the field have made to honor the deadline, its for symbolic rather than practical reasons.

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence of mounting popular anxiety, but very little evidence of those kinds of conflict dynamics kicking in. For what it's worth, both Iraqi and American officials seem confident... I'm not particularly an optimist on these matters, any more than I was in the past -- but I also see a rapidly declining ability or need for the U.S. to manage these issues.

Instead, he points to a multitude of problems with the intigration of Sunnis, particularly former members of the SoI and Kurds, who have never felt as strong a sense of connection to the central government. He also points out the there has been little done to improve the situation facing Iraqi refugees/IDPs. Like Ibn M, his conclusion is that "slowing down the American drawdown would not materially improve any of these issues."

Chris Dierkes at the Atlantic Council basically agrees with Lynch, but adds that much of the negative analysis is not willing enough to ascribe agency to Iraqis (on the academic end of things, this echos compelling arguments that Libby Wood has made). He instead argues:

In the absence of the US filling the void left in the wake of the destruction of the Baath dictatorship, civil war raged. That civil war was a political war... But nature abhors a vacuum. That vacuum was filled by the ensuing conflagration, which was purely predictable given sufficient knowledge of how these things play out–the Iraqi local circumstances filled in the details of that otherwise recognizable general pattern.

And that Civil War was won by the Shia. Definitively.

and then moves on to discuss the realities of dealing with this newly reveled Shia victory in similar terms to Ibn M and Lynch.

However, even this view fail to really capture the weight of the "symbolic" deadline for many Iraqis. Attackerman quotes sources describing the scene as:

It's a "carnival" in Baghdad, according to the Post's Ernesto Londono, filled with Iraqi troops grinning as they take their lives into their own hands and graffitti writers further south demanding, "Pull your troops from our Basra, we are its sons and want its sovereignty." Don't tell them tomorrow is just another day.

At the end of the day though, the biggest difference seems to be not in the analysis of what Iraqs future problems will be, but rather weather a continued American military presence could reasonably be expected to do anything to help prevent another wave of conflict. I generally tend to side with the school of thought that military forces arent going to do much to help with the next generation of problems, however (and this is a substantial caveat) I have a distinct feeling that the Iraqi Army and Police have underestimated the level of training they require, and our "training and advisory" mission is going to need to be scaled up from the current timetable at later stages of the withdrawal plan.

Honduras is America's Turkey?

Today's news that the army overthrow the president of Honduras after he threatened to overrule the term limit law that would have forced him out of office, in favor of the president of Congress. With both the legislative and judicial branches backing the army's actions, it seems a little odd to me that the leadership of the Americas including Obama has been so quick to denounce the move (ok this reference to moving against the USA shaky record in the region makes a fair point).

While Latin America is not a region I know much about, it seems to me that what has happen here is not so much equivalent of, say, the 2002 coup in Venezuela, but rather to the habit the Turkish army had for much of the 20th century of overthrowing rulers who began to demonstrate authoritarian tendencies. While a regular role for the military enforcing democratic norms may seem counter-intuitive to American norms, the Turkish military is quiet proud of what it sees as its role in defending the legal order, and has produced one of the more recognizably democratic countries in the old school third world. This same thing could be whats going on in Central America now.

Afghan exhibit at Met in NYC till Sept 20th

I saw this exhibit of art from the Kabul national Museum, curated by National Geographic last summer at the National Gallery in DC... its now at the Met in NYC. I really recommend seeing it if you can, both because of the gorgeous work in the collection, and the incredible story it represents.

This exhibition highlights the amazing rediscovery of the Silk Road treasures from Central Asia, thought to have been lost during decades of warfare and turmoil in Afghanistan. These masterpieces of the Kabul Museum collection remained hidden for twenty-five years, thanks to the heroism of the Kabul Museam's staff, who had secretly crated them and placed them in the vaults of the Central bank in the presidential palace. It was only in 2004 that the crates were opened to reveal that these wrks had survived intact.

A couple of my favorite images, reproduced on the Met's website are below:


Indian influenced scuplture from the 1st or 2nd century CE


Goldwork clasp showing the greek god Eros with local Afghan fish motif, 1st-2nd cent CE

Plaster cast of a Hellonistic style medalion of a youth 1st-2nd century CE

These three items demonstrate the range of styles and influences that is common in the art of the exhibit, and goes a long way to demonstrating some of the unique cultural confluences that occured in Afghani history.

A new gold standard?

Joseph Stiglitz has a good piece in Vanity Fair about the possible repressions of the American financial meltdown on both the global economy and Americas philosophical place in the world. Its worth reading in its entirity, but a little thing in it caught my attention [emphasis is mine]:

The dollar has long been the reserve currency—countries held the dollar in order to back up confidence in their own currencies and governments. But it has gradually dawned on central banks around the world that the dollar may not be a good store of value. Its value has been volatile, and declining. The massive increase in America’s indebtedness during the current crisis, combined with the Federal Reserve Board’s massive lending, has heightened anxieties about the future of the dollar. The Chinese have openly floated the idea of inventing some new reserve currency to replace it.

My understanding was that the use of the dollar by foreign banks was intended to replace a global gold or silver standard. how does one creat a currency that is able to act as a solid reserve currency out of whole cloth, unless you go back to some level of direct conversion between resources and monetary units. Is this basically what China wants to do (and if so how) or has my lack of Economic knowledge struck again?

Common econ kids I'm looking to you to explain this one...

Hippies and Mullahs

So my mother, while not actually a hippie, always liked folk music, so I was raised hearing many of the standbys. maybe that's why this version of "We Shall Overcome" with a verse in farsi, sung by Joan Baez strikes me as being so lovely.

Appeal to the Bazaaris?

Juan Cole is reporting that plans are underway for a new round of protests tomorrow morning.

This is a way for them to achieve a shop strike indirectly, hurting the economy and putting pressure on the regime.

While the economic effects of this are certainly useful, and as Cole notes there are distinct strategic advantages to the close quarters of the market places, it seems to me that there could also be some inportant signaling going on here.

A major element of the coalition that eventually overthrow the Shah was the traditional merchant class, or Bazaaris (this paper is an interesting look at the economic motivations for the alliance). I cant help but think that a motive for the location of this new round of protests it to force the Bazaari to chose a side here, because if the security forces start taking down the markets, thier interest will be seriously threatened.

Hey! how about the rest of the that there Dar al-Islam

Wanted to quickly highlight a couple of interesting pieces that are not about Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan.

Fistful of Euros generally covers Europe, but today there's an interesting analysis of Senegal as a outlying Islamic democracy in Africa.

So why doesn’t Senegal get any respect?

Really. Whenever you see pundits talking about democracy and Islam, it’s all “well, Turkey, and perhaps Indonesia, ummm, maybe Malaysia? Wait, does Albania count?”

It’s hard to avoid thinking that Senegal gets overlooked because it’s, you know. Down there.

But Senegal’s not even alone. Two other Francophone West African countries — Mali and Niger — are far down the road to democracy.

Its a good point, particularly given the medias tendency to only be able to follow one story at a time.

and for your COIN decorating needs

I knew that there were rugs like this produced during the Soviet occupation, but this is the first I've seen that has the updated weapons of the GWOT. I'm going to wait to purchase until they come in predator drone.

h/t Strange Mats via Noah

Early signs on the results of the US withdraw

Reuters is reporting demonstration at the site of one of yesterdays bomb blasts in Baghdad. I'll be very interested to see whether these continue if the violence does, as to my knowledge this type of explicit call for Iraqi responsibility for population protection is new, and a very positive sign of US success in the SOFA mandated handoffs.