Remember that “terrible phrase”, Winning Hearts And Minds (WHAM)? Using development programs as a tool for counterinsurgency? PRTs and Money as a Weapons System? So last decade, right? Well it’s back, and there’s some new evidence to show that it might actually work – for certain things, and when done right. From Afghanistan, of course. It’s only taken 10 years.

Yes, Tufts University’s Andrew Wilder has already done quite a bit of research in the area, and highlights the National Solidarity Program (NSP) (largest development program in the country) as the only program with a positive reputation, mainly due to perceptions of equality and community involvement.

Winning Hearts and Minds: Evidence from a Field Experiment in Afghanistan goes a step further in looking at the NSP. Randomly sampling 500 villages across 10 districts, it finds that the NSP has had positive effects on perceptions of; economic wellbeing, all levels of Afghan government, NGOs, and ISAF soldiers. It also reports improved perceptions of the security, but the shift does not necessarily translate to the occurrence of security incidents in and around villages.

A word of warning before the donor chequebooks come out – although the NSP is funded by foreign donors, it is provided and administered by the Afghan government. Therefore, the lessons here may not be transferable to development projects delivered by foreign powers.

So, development programs (when run by host governments with local buy in and plenty of engagement) can create conditions which improve perceptions of wellbeing and government. But, the jury is still out on the security / stabilisation effect. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait another decade for that chestnut.

 

Karzai and NATO agree on a four year transition plan for handover of security. Source: NATO

 

Here in Lisbon at the 2010 NATO summit, President Karzai and NATO leaders today agreed a transition plan that will transfer security responsibility to Afghan security forces (ANSF). 4,000 miles away, the Afghan public are doubtful that the ANSF will actually be ready to assume this responsibility by 2014.

In a survey published yesterday by the International Council on Security and Development (ICOS), 61% of respondents in Helmand and Kandahar believe the ANSF will be unable to provide post-transition security. The survey interviewed 1500 Afghans in southern and northern Afghanistan, and reports that 56% believe Afghan police are helping the Taliban and 25% believe that police end up joining the Taliban.

 

The transition isn’t the only area where there appears to be a disconnect between the views of Western capitals and the Afghan public. With only 8% of respondents aware of 9/11, the event which led to the NATO operation in Afghanistan, most don’t understand why NATO is in Afghanistan and how it might offer a better future than the Taliban. With 55% opposing military operations against the Taliban in their area, the “hearts and minds” aim of General Petraeus’ population-focussed counter-insurgency strategy clearly has a long way to go.

The Afghan transition agreement follows yesterday’s approval of the 11 page Strategic Concept, which resolved to maintain a nuclear deterrent and turn alliance activities towards new threats to NATO members. Leaders also agreed to develop a $270m ‘protective umbrella’ missile system to defend NATO members against potential ballistic missile attacks from countries such as Iran, Syria and North Korea. *Breaking* – The Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has accepted the offer to cooperate on the missile defence project – “for the first time, the two sides will be cooperating in defending themselves” – NATO S-G Rasmussen.

The 2010 NATO Summit kicks off in Lisbon today. Source: NATO

1999. The year the euro was established. Gates’ personal fortune surpassed $100bn. Napster was born. Jay-Z delighted fans with lyrics such as “More money, more cash, more hoes (what)”. NATO intervened in Yugoslavia, attacking a sovereign country for the first time. It was also the year that NATO adopted its most recent “Strategic Concept”.

And how times have changed.

I’m here in Lisbon for the 2010 NATO summit (thanks to the Atlantic Council’s Young Atlanticist Summit), and there’s a buzz in town. Lauded as one of the most crucial in the organisation’s 61 year history, 28 Heads of State will arrive today to approve the alliance’s new mission statement for the next decade – the 2010 Strategic Concept.

With tightened belts, cuts on the horizon, and Joint Command Lisbon (one of the three main subdivisions of NATO’s Allied Command Operations) facing potential closure next year, the Portuguese are anxious for the Summit to be seen as a success, already touting it as the “Lisbon Compact”.

So what is it all about? As with many multilateral organisations, the pace of global change has outstripped the pace of reform. With a widened membership pool with diverging interests, and a distinct lack of unifying threat, NATO has been struggling to keep itself relevant, especially given many allies’ lukewarm if not frosty interest in committing more blood and treasure to the primary effort in Afghanistan.

Expectations for the Strategic Concept aren’t high. Although Madeleine Albright, former US Secretary of State, and her “twelve apostles” submitted their experts’ report to Secretary-General Rasmussen in May, many expect it to have been diluted significantly in order to secure approval from alliance members. Nevertheless, it will almost certainly include reaffirmation of Article 5 (collective defence, which led to NATO involvement in Afghanistan post 9/11), which will please the Baltics, and Ukraine and Georgia – both potential candidates for membership.

Other discussions taking place will cover missile defence (Germany and France are currently sparring on this), command structure reform, development of the comprehensive approach (bringing together civilian & military resources in stabilisation), and the NATO-Russia Council (with President Medvedev attending for the first time since the 2008 Georgia row).

Perhaps more headline-grabbing will be the discussion of the transition plan in Afghanistan – the shift of security responsibilities to the Afghan authorities bringing NATO’s combat operations to an end by 2014. How this drawdown is structured and what role members will have in achieving this is unclear. More on this later…

Quite a bit on the agenda indeed, and with shrinking budgets and expanding challenges, consensus will be much more difficult to achieve compared to 1999, and few expect anything radical. 11 years on, even Jay-Z’s optimism also seems to be waning, with his latest tune lacking the 90’s materialistic aspirations of his “more money, more cash, more hoes (what)” hit. As a rework of Alphaville’s “Forever Young”, the lyrics may be particularly pertinent for many in both Lisbon and Afghanistan this weekend.

“Let us die young or live forever,

We don’t have the power but we never say never.

Sitting in a sandpit,

Life is a short trip,

The music’s for the sad man.”

Jay-Z’s tune has certainly changed, but the next few days will show us if NATO has too.