In his Thursday column in the Washington Post David Ignatius highlights a new emphasis in U.S. counter-terror strategy : relying more on partner-nations around the world. As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to cost us in lives, treasure, global reputation and standing, this makes sense. We should rely more on our partner governments in places like Yemen, Pakistan, and Afghanistan to lead the fight against extremism within their own borders. We can assist in training, equipment and intelligence sharing, but at the end of the day, these are complex local problems which require local solutions.
But is it enough to continue to throw money and expertise at a problem and hope they are used effectively by other governments outside our control? We partnered with the Saudis and Pakistanis in the 1980s to challenge the Soviets in Afghanistan. We ended up replacing a Soviet adversary with a hard core jihadist cabal even more dedicated to the destruction of Western civilization. More recently, the Bush administration siphoned $10 billion down the rat hole of President Musharraf’s Pakistan in the years after 9/11. Today, Pakistan is less stable and arguably more a fulcrum of extremism than at any other time in its history. Osama Bin Laden, Mullah Omar and others continue to operate from its hinterlands with impunity.
A true partnership needs teeth- carrots to incentivize, but sticks as well to discourage the litany of bad behavior associated with our foreign aid programs since they began. It cannot be the usual game of cocktail parties on the diplomatic circuit, empty rhetoric at conferences and glib policy briefings between “allies”. Not when American lives are at stake. We are getting better at this- calibrating aid to key countries on an array of progress benchmarks to be met or exceeded. But more needs to be done.
One possibility is to take a variant of the model recently established by our Department of Education for federal aid to the 50 states and apply it to our counter-terror relationships. The DOE’s Race to the Top program earmarks over $4 billion for state education departments- again, localizing the solution by recognizing that each state knows best how to allocate resources to their local education problems. However, a state’s share of the pie depends on the educational reforms it spear-heads thru its own initiative- establishing standards for student achievement, turning around the poorest performing schools, rewarding teachers based on performance.
Wouldn’t it be great if our $30 billion foreign aid budget worked in a similar way instead of the current system: a web of congressional earmarks to hard lobbying special interests that continues to reward bad behavior. We would tell our partner governments around the world that we have $30 billion to spend to support them in the fight against extremism. But how much they get will all depend on how well they fight the fight. If they don’t fight very well, other countries will beat them out for a limited stock of aid dollars.
A little competition goes a long way. Countries like Pakistan and Afghanistan have made a good living on the American dole by portraying themselves as teetering on the brink of collapse. Corrupt politicians and generals have no incentive to get their act together when the money is so good on the way down; when capturing Osama or Mullah Omar might mean America and its aid appropriators will lose interest and turn to other priorities, just as we did at the end of the Cold War. What is the motivation to defeat the Taliban when retaining them as a bargaining chip fills the government coffers of both Zardari and Karzai?
The prospect of getting nothing fundamentally changes the calculus of local leaders wedded to American dollars and brings both parties in the partnership into alignment. Our partners must show progress in a range of indicators before they get allocations. This is very similar to how the Millennium Challenge Corporation already operates in its development work. These indicators can be hot war benchmarks such as insurgents killed, captured, rehabilitated or convinced to lay down their arms. But they must also include the milestones of the soft war against extremism that is at least as important: creating jobs and training for groups most susceptible to fundamentalist ideology, providing reliable government services in more areas of a country, fighting the corruption and cronyism that leads disaffected citizens to turn away from their own governments.
To be fair, we can’t just hold our Muslim allies accountable. We must exert pressure for outcomes across the board. Peace between traditional foes whose conflicts influence the war on extremism is also a very important benchmark to calibrate US aid to more deliberately. For example, both Pakistan and India must make measurable progress in solving problems such as Kashmir that are clearly a cause celebre for jihadists around the world. Similarly, Israel (the largest recipient of US aid- an effective blank check of over $2 billion annually) and the Palestinians must come to terms on a just settlement of their problems. Right now there is little pressure for either side to change bad behavior. The Palestinians continue to be propped up by American aid even as their leadership does little to change endemic corruption and poor economic policies. Why change when it’s much easier to portray the situation as untenable and dangerously out of control without the life line of American support. The Israelis as well have no reason to change their zero-sum calculus on meaningful negotiations with the Palestinian side. Their lobby in Washington ensures aid levels remain the same whether or not they give up concessions or not. So why concede? Meanwhile, Palestinian suffering in Gaza and an array of refugee camps is packaged and marketed across the Muslim world by extremists as a powerful recruiting tool to kill Americans and take aim at Israel’s primary patron and arms dealer.
Perhaps the proposal above is naive. Vested interests within the United States itself- earmarking Congressman, defense contractors, government agencies- all jealously guard these aid appropriation levels that they and their constituents profit from, perpetuating the system. But at the end of the day, we want performance for our taxpayer dollars and a campaign against extremism that actually makes us safer and protects American lives. The only way we’ll get it is by truly aligning interests with our foreign partners and nudging them towards real outcomes.
