Afghan Elections

Afghanistan is to elect a new president on April 5th, 2014 at great expense and doubtless some loss of life. But I can't help but wonder if this is really the best use of America's limited political capital, resources, and time left in the region. And these worries, wonders, and questions relate, ultimately, to much more fundamental political issues. You see, the United States went into Afghanistan initially with limited goals and met with tremendous success. However, as the time on the ground in Afghanistan lengthened, the mission expanded. The results were not as expected with the total war for the Afghanistan War, America's longest by the way, fast approaching $700 billion.

From my time working as a counterinsurgency analyst in Kabul, I have questions about the utility of the elections: whether they're worth the time, money, effort, and risk. My senior colleague said that the elections were America's last and best chance to influence Afghanistan for the better. I had my doubts after reviewing what happened during the 2009 elections with the usual violence, corruption, and fraud, especially in the Pashtun regions. The international elections reviewers acknowledged the problems but concluded that they did not impact the outcome of the election. I'm not so sure.

You see, there was initial period of relative calm and trust in Afghanistan around 2003 to 2004 after the defeat of the Taliban, but that period was short-lived. The Taliban started returning around 2005 and their influenced has increased since. Partially driving that expansion has been the perception of increasing corruption of the country's senior officials, that they are more intent on increasing their personal wealth rather than helping the country. Scandals such as abuse at Dawood Hospital, missing funds from Kabul Bank, and drug running by the Afghan Air Force only serve to reinforce this perception

Feelings of legitimacy by the populace are only one aspect of the larger constellation of issues to be considered such as the diplomatic, informational, military, and economic (DIME) interventions that comprise a counterinsurgency (COIN) policy portfolio. It is difficult to ensure that these multiple lines of effort integrate to achieve the overall policy goals. Given the significant levels of money, times, and personnel expended to improve Afghanistan, significant time and effort should be given to the planning of the interventions. For example, policy should be conducted with as much care as circuit and software design. The 2014 Presidential elections fall under this evaluation regime, especially given the shortcomings of elections in Iraq.

Simulation provides the ability to examine separate courses of actions, and a simulation-based comparison scenario study is proposed here. The first scenario would indicate the behavior that was expected by the selected policies. The timeframe should be from the 2009 surge after the elections of Barack Obama that implemented village stability operations (VSO) and Afghan local police (ALP). The purpose of the scenario is to establish the expected results from intervention of the US and its NATO coalition partners. The second scenario would depict what actually occurred to identify how it differed from what was expected. The results of such a study would provide a multi-variate, numerical study that identifies why the policy results differed from those that were expected and how the intervention could have been improved.