From The Truth Laid Bear's New Webblog Showcase:
Brian's Study Breaks: Afghan Nation-Building
"This issue highlights a core problem in the Afghan reconstruction efforts: What is Karzai's means of unifying the country? As became clear from Bob Woodward's Bush at War, the most important early factor was money - we hired the warlords as mercenaries, and set up a state on the theory they would learn to profit from stability. However, they see their real power in their armed forces, and Dostum knows that if he loses that connection he becomes less worth the attention of the different power blocs. One thing to remember about Afghanistan is that even before the civil war there was never much central control by the government...the concept of the nation-state taken for granted by Western policy-makers really doesn't exist there. Hence, Karzai's main tool, a plea for Afghan unity to become a modern nation-state, may not be the best tool for the job, even worse than the Taliban's religious ideology. The government needs to sell itself as the guarantor of stability and prosperity, which requires military forces to make it safe to run an economy. And the famous "Afghan army" has been slow to develop indeed. As it is, I worry that the Afghan government may be trying too much too quickly politically. The RFE-RL-reported leaks about the Afghan constitution say it will call for a strong central government. In the absence of a basis for unity on the ground, trying to write it into the constitution is a serious mistake. "
Brian's Study Breaks: Afghan Nation-Building
"This issue highlights a core problem in the Afghan reconstruction efforts: What is Karzai's means of unifying the country? As became clear from Bob Woodward's Bush at War, the most important early factor was money - we hired the warlords as mercenaries, and set up a state on the theory they would learn to profit from stability. However, they see their real power in their armed forces, and Dostum knows that if he loses that connection he becomes less worth the attention of the different power blocs. One thing to remember about Afghanistan is that even before the civil war there was never much central control by the government...the concept of the nation-state taken for granted by Western policy-makers really doesn't exist there. Hence, Karzai's main tool, a plea for Afghan unity to become a modern nation-state, may not be the best tool for the job, even worse than the Taliban's religious ideology. The government needs to sell itself as the guarantor of stability and prosperity, which requires military forces to make it safe to run an economy. And the famous "Afghan army" has been slow to develop indeed. As it is, I worry that the Afghan government may be trying too much too quickly politically. The RFE-RL-reported leaks about the Afghan constitution say it will call for a strong central government. In the absence of a basis for unity on the ground, trying to write it into the constitution is a serious mistake. "