The Washington Post reports that US strategy in Afghanistan includes bribing Taliban foot-soldiers not to fight:

Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund, expected to total up to $500 million over the next five years, as part of a broad plan to help lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, protection against retaliation, and the removal of their names from lists of U.S. and NATO targets.

Bernard Finel focuses on the likely futility of this approach:

…what is the long-term here?  You out-compete the Taliban financially for the loyalty of apolitical fighters. Then what? The reality is that this creates a durable political economy that supports violence and warfare. There is going to be an entire class of people whose well-being depends on continued payments, and who have the ability to extort more money simply by turning back to violence. This is the institutionalization of an extortion scheme.

Exactly. This is going to turn into a game where people join the Taliban just so they can get a payment not to fight. In fact, one would probably only need to threaten to join the Taliban to get into the program. This is going to create an endless supply of people who want handouts.

Moreover, the whole program seems rather pointless. People will only join the program if they believe the US and its allies will be able to defeat the Taliban. If they do not, they have very little incentive to join it. Since the success of the program directly hinges on whether people believe the US can win, why start it? Why not spend the time and money trying to win the war?

I can see some logic of the program because it is likely to weaken the Taliban in the short-term by making it difficult for them to recruit. If it was in the context of a broader, coherent, and credible strategy to defeat the Taliban, I suppose I could support it. But as this article demonstrates, its not clear this is the strategy and even if it were, Pakistan’s opposition to it means the likelihood of defeating the Taliban is very low. On the other hand, if our policy is to negotiate with “moderate” Taliban (whatever that means), it seems to me we do not need the jobs program. In fact, using the lure of jobs might give the Taliban an incentive to negotiate.

I agree with Les Gelb:

McChrystal and the others’ hope is that the United States will be able to outbid the Taliban leadership for the services of some of these fighters. It’s also clear that neither President Karzai nor the Americans will know if this gambit will work until it is tried, and until they see that these fighters do not return to the Taliban’s fold in six months’ to a year’s time.

(Deep sigh) It’s quite sad that 8 years into this war we are still trying to find out what works and what does not. Extrapolating from this means that the US is more likely to defeat the Taliban (or negotiate a successful end to the war) by luck than by strategy.

Paul Krugman picks up on one of my frustrations:

Gah. I hate, hate, hate it when people say that we have to do something, not on its merits, but because otherwise we would damage market confidence. Nobody really knows how the markets will react; the right thing, always, is to pursue policies that look right on the substance.

I agree with Paul. This line of reasoning grates on me as well, like someone dragging rusty nails over a chalkboard. When I worked at the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department, and while in graduate school, I heard this line of reasoning all the time. It always dove me crazy and I have blown up twice.

Once it was at the IMF. I was in a meeting about how to deal with Ukraine’s exploding deficit and one of my colleagues said it was important to pursue pension reform because that would reassure the markets. I went a little crazy. It was the middle of winter and people were freezing in Ukraine. I think I shouted something like “Who are these markets? Why do we have to please them? Old people in Kiev are freezing and you want to give them less money for their heating bills so we can please the markets. What kind of sense does that make?” Everyone looked at me like I was a little nuts.

The second time happened in graduate school. One of my classmates was obsessed with this type of logic as well: any policy that made markets happy was by definition a good one, according to him. He was making a presentation on his research and he must have said investor confidence one too many times for me to swallow. I blurted out something like “So what I am hearing from you is that it’s better to wreck the lives of the people you govern than provide useful public services, if that’s what the markets want. As long as we’re at it, why don’t we get rid of democracy altogether and let markets choose our government?”

The comments to Krugman’s post have been equally as humorous and cathartic.  Here is a selection:

People who claim markets are rational would appear slightly more credible if they didn’t in the same breath advocate treating the markets as one would treat a very grouchy, very rabid dog.

“The Market” is not some ancient god to whom we must sacrifice our judgment or fear their wrath and ill omens. Nor is it like a child we must shelter from the harsh realities of the world lest we hurt its feelings.

Amen. Let’s not upset those market confidence spirits.

There is almost an element of blackmail in these utterances as if you say something a little negative and the markets will tank and you are to blame for all the dwindling 401Ks.

One suspects that the “markets” might be very unhappy if Congress enacted good regulatory controls, or unemployment payments were extended to those not presently covered, or taxes imposed on excessive bonuses. But that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be done.

What about the slave markets? We don’t want to disrupt those either??? It’s not because one sells something that it is a good thing.

Thank you, Paul. I am glad to know I am not alone.

President Obama from his West Point speech on Afghanistan, December 1, 2009:

Al Qaeda’s base of operations was in Afghanistan, where they were harbored by the Taliban – a ruthless, repressive and radical movement…

Gradually, the Taliban has begun to control additional swaths of territory in Afghanistan, while engaging in increasingly brazen and devastating attacks of terrorism against the Pakistani people…

Commanders in Afghanistan repeatedly asked for support to deal with the reemergence of the Taliban, but these reinforcements did not arrive. And that’s why, shortly after taking office, I approved a longstanding request for more troops. After consultations with our allies, I then announced a strategy recognizing the fundamental connection between our war effort in Afghanistan and the extremist safe havens in Pakistan…

We must reverse the Taliban’s momentum and deny it the ability to overthrow the government…

…we will pursue a military strategy that will break the Taliban’s momentum…

This is pretty clear. The Taliban is a threat and Obama made clear the US is going to fight them. I thus found Dexter Filkins’s article in yesterday’s New York Times quite surprising:

For weeks, reports have swirled around the capital of back-channel discussions between the Afghan government and the [Taliban] leadership council known as the Quetta Shura, so called for its supposed base in Quetta, Pakistan…

“We have been passing a lot of messages,” said Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Taliban ambassador who now lives in Kabul. He is one of the principal conduits for getting notes to the Taliban leadership…

The only way to peace, the Afghan and American officials believe, is through a political settlement – that is, some arrangement for sharing power – that all sides can live with.

Now, to be clear, I am neither for nor against negotiating with the Taliban. What amazes me is that less than two months after Obama made his West Point speech on Afghanistan following months of careful and extensive deliberation on it, the administration seems to have changed its mind. This makes me wonder whether it has any policy at all.

Seems like Hillary Clinton’s recent speech on internet freedom did not go over very well with everyone in China. According to Reuters:

A speech by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Thursday showed a lack of respect for China, which cannot accept conditions on matters of “national security” or “social stability,” said Beijing Association of Online Media Chairman Min Dahong…

“How China’s Internet develops and how it is managed are Chinese people’s own affairs,” Min said in an interview with state-run Xinhuanet.com.

“On the Internet question, China doesn’t need any lessons from the United States on what to do or how,” he said…

“Hillary’s speech on January 21 insinuating that China lacks freedom of information and speech is in fact disrespectful and doesn’t stand up,” Min said.

Good for Secretary Clinton.

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates did not receive a warm reception in Pakistan this week. Elisabeth Bumiller reports in the New York Times:

Pakistani journalists asked Mr. Gates if the United States had plans to take over Pakistan’s nuclear weapons (Mr. Gates said no) and whether the United States would expand the drone strikes farther south into Baluchistan, as is under discussion. Mr. Gates did not answer.

At the same time, the Pakistani Army’s chief spokesman told American reporters at the army headquarters in Rawalpindi on Thursday that the military had no immediate plans to launch an offensive against extremists in the tribal region of North Waziristan, as American officials have repeatedly urged.

And the spokesman, Maj. Gen Athar Abbas, rejected Mr. Gates’s assertion that Al Qaeda had links to militant groups on Pakistan’s border. Asked why the United States would have such a view, the spokesman, General Abbas, curtly replied, “Ask the United States.”

Well, I am no expert on Pakistan and I have no idea what links Al Qaeda has with “militant groups” along Pakistan’s border. All I know is what I read in the news. Here’s what Lehaz Ali reported in Agence France-Presse yesterday:

A suicide bomber killed at least four people including two children on Saturday while militants destroyed a NATO tanker in a region of Pakistan known for harbouring Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

OK, so Gates says there is a problem, the Pakistanis say there is not, and a few bombs just went off in the region where there may or may not be a problem, depending on who you ask. Seems like Pakistan and the US have some differences of opinion over this issue.

This may or may not be troubling for the US, depending on what sort of relationship it wants with Pakistan. Obama clarified this issue in his West Point speech:

…we are committed to a partnership with Pakistan that is built on a foundation of mutual interests, mutual respect and mutual trust. We will strengthen Pakistan’s capacity to target those groups that threaten our countries, and have made it clear that we cannot tolerate a safe haven for terrorists whose location is known, and whose intentions are clear.

That’s clear enough. It wants Pakistan as a partner. How’s that partnership working out? Seems to me we have a long way to go before we can tick off the checklist of “mutual interests, mutual respect and mutual trust.”

In a bit of a shocker, Richard Haass, the president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), says the US should actively support regime change in Iran in Newsweek.

Haass starts the article by burnishing his credentials as a foreign policy realist who supports diplomatic engagement with Iran:

I am a card-carrying realist on the grounds that ousting regimes and replacing them with something better is easier said than done. I also believe that Washington, in most cases, doesn’t have the luxury of trying…

The incoming Obama administration…expressed a willingness to talk to Iran without preconditions…The other options – using military force against Iranian nuclear facilities or living with an Iranian nuclear bomb – were judged to be tremendously unattractive. And if diplomacy failed, Obama reasoned, it would be easier to build domestic and international support for more robust sanctions. At the time, I agreed with him.

He then explains why he has changed his mind:

The nuclear talks are going nowhere. The Iranians appear intent on developing the means to produce a nuclear weapon; there is no other explanation for the secret uranium-enrichment facility discovered near the holy city of Qum…

The authorities overreached in their blatant manipulation of last June’s presidential election, and then made matters worse by brutally repressing those who protested. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has lost much of his legitimacy, as has the “elected” president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The opposition Green Movement has grown larger and stronger than many predicted.

The United States, European governments, and others should shift their Iran policy toward increasing the prospects for political change.

Helpfully, Haass outlines what policies he would like to see the Obama administration enact:

…Iran’s Revolutionary Guards should be singled out for sanctions….

New funding for the project housed at Yale University that documents human-rights abuses in Iran is warranted…Such a registry might deter some members of the Guards or the million-strong Basij militia it controls from attacking or torturing members of the opposition. And even if not, the gesture will signal to Iranians that the world is taking note of their struggle.

It is essential to bolster what people in Iran know. Outsiders can help to provide access to the Internet…The opposition also needs financial support…

Just as important as what to do is what to avoid. Congressmen and senior administration figures should avoid meeting with the regime. Any and all help for Iran’s opposition should be nonviolent. Iran’s opposition should be supported by Western governments, not led. In this vein, outsiders should refrain from articulating specific political objectives other than support for democracy and an end to violence and unlawful detention. Sanctions on Iran’s gasoline imports and refining, currently being debated in Congress, should be pursued at the United Nations so international focus does not switch from the illegality of Iran’s behavior to the legality of unilateral American sanctions.

Haass ends by taking pre-emptive action against his likely critics:

Critics will say promoting regime change will encourage Iranian authorities to tar the opposition as pawns of the West. But the regime is already doing so.

Three points on the article. First, it is very well written. Second, the policies he recommends seem quite level-headed. Target the regime leaders for sanctions, support – but not lead – the opposition, and denounce the regime. Third, since Haass is the CFR’s president, this probably represents consensus (or near consensus) within the organization. I hope the Obama administration takes his suggestions seriously.

In a recent post, I wrote that I liked the policy idea in Secretary Clinton’s speech on internet freedom about using new technologies to hold governments more accountable. The more I talked about it with others, the more I felt like something was missing, not only in the idea, but in the speech more broadly. Evgeny Morzov at Foreign Policy made me realize what it was.

what’s the broader strategy here? I didn’t sense one…they are clinging to the old view “let’s make information available and see what happens,” which I think is a very passive (and often dangerous) way of going about it. I doubt they would be able to topple the Iranian regime with an iPhone app. Voice of America… already tried something similar. It seems like the State Department hopes to solve its political issues via economics: mobile phones will create universal prosperity and that will somehow guarantee democracy and human rights everywhere.  Maybe. Unless, of course, authoritarian governments develop even greater immunity to information, which will make the State Department’s job much harder.

More crudely, Clinton has a solution in search of a problem.