We have not and will not put our money where our mouth is. So far, the most important initiative was the Bush administration's creation of the State Department's Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization to coordinate the vital development and reconstruction tasks that had been thrust onto the military. While fine in theory, this has not been supported at nearly the level needed, and is unlikely to be in the future.
Even a fully funded Civilian Response Corps--the crown jewel of the effort--would theoretically consist of 250 full time members, 2,000 "standby" members from elsewhere in the federal government (which begs the question of how their employing agencies would do without them if they were gone for years at a time), and 2,000 "reserve" member from the private sector and state and local governments (who also would leave their employers in the lurch if deployed for an extended period). Under the absolute best possible conditions, the Civilian Response Corps could send one American adviser for every 42,000 people in a country like Pakistan, or one for every 35,000 in Nigeria, at least for as long as they could be kept in the field. This is a drop in a very large bucket.
The need for expanded civilian capability is certainly most stark in Afghanistan. "Almost every report on the progress of Afghan governance, police and justice system for the last eight years has decried the lack of civilians," said retired Marine Colonel Thomas X. Hammes. As Army Colonel Louis Jordan, the senior military adviser to the Afghan Deputy Minister of Interior for Counter-Narcotics, put it, "a 'civilian surge' of career professionals is an absolute necessity to make any of this work." General Stanley McChrystal's recent strategic assessment stated, "Broadly speaking, we require more civilian and military resources..."
The problem, though, is bigger than Afghanistan. Much bigger. The foundation of current American security policy is stabilizing countries where extremists can use insurgency and other forms of violence to create terrorist sanctuaries. To be effective, this requires extensive assistance and large numbers of advisers with expertise in infrastructure development, financial and economic planning, education, governance, the cultivation of civil society, and law enforcement. Yet, after five years of speeches, workshops, and reports, we are no closer to having what we need.
There are only two solutions. We could belly up and provide the resources for a serious expeditionary civilian corps. But a few hundred or even a couple of thousand people is not enough. We would need many thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of advisers with linguistic skills and cultural knowledge willing to leave home and live under risky conditions for years at a time. And we are not talking about 20-somethings paid a pittance and fueled by idealism, but skilled professionals demanding serious pay for their expertise and sacrifice. (The difficulty that the State department had convincing even its hardened professionals to volunteer for duty in Iraq showed what a challenge this is.) Of course, if the pay is high enough, the experts will come. But, at a time of massive government budget deficits and a persisting national economic crisis, this is simply not in the cards.
What, then, is Plan B? If we are unwilling to pay the price for a serious civilian capability--and admit that foisting the job of development and political assistance on the military is a bad idea--the only option is to alter our basic strategy. We could find a way to thwart Al Qaeda and other terrorists without trying to re-engineer weak states. We could, in other words, get out of the counterinsurgency and stabilization business. This is not an attractive option and entails many risks. But it does reflect reality. Ultimately, it may be better than a strategy based on a capability that exists only in our minds.
Steven Metz is the author of Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy.
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