tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29763791.post460551425796682967..comments2023-10-31T05:07:19.353-04:00Comments on Delenda est Carthago: What is Afghanistan’s potential?Dr. Φhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14086783503820477029noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29763791.post-91542562258541757672011-01-22T10:23:02.914-05:002011-01-22T10:23:02.914-05:00You may or may not have seen this article, in whic...You may or may not have seen this article, in which an Air Force colonel muses on the futility of trying to create a functioning country when the local population consists of people who cannot even successfully inflate a basketball. He concludes we are "multiplying by zero" in Afghanistan:<br /><br />http://usacac.army.mil/CAC2/MilitaryReview/Archives/English/MilitaryReview_20110228_art014.pdf<br /><br />"Afghanistan and the Afghans provide such a limited foundation to build from that "by, with, and through" simply may not be feasible. In many ways, we are multiplying by zero. The Afghans have limited infrastructure; limited agricultural capability; limited to no indigenous industrial capacity; an immature consumer economy; an impotent and incoherent security apparatus; and a fledgling Western-style government overseeing a decentralized, tribally based population. No foundation exists to to build on. The lack of an existing infrastructure prevents the creation of second- and third-order economic effects, construction of a security force, and the development of functioning public transportation and communication services. The United States is investing in a country in which there is literally nothing to invest. Virtually everything the U.S. uses has to be imported because Afghanistan is fundamentally underdeveloped. <br />What I witnessed in Afghanistan is best summed up in Robert Kaplan's The Ends of the Earth. Kaplan notes that when the United States began the Peace Corps in the 1960s, both Sierra Leone and India required basic agricultural know-how. Thirty years later, India had become a net food exporter and a producer of high technology with no further need of farm assistance. Sierra Leone, on the other hand, remained exactly where it was in the 1960s when the Peace Corps first arrived. The message of Sierra Leone was brutal: The end was nigh in the failed battle, fought valiantly by the liberal West, to equalize cultures around the world. The differences between some cultures and others (regarding the ability to produce exportable material wealth) appeared to be growing rather than diminishing. I could substitute Afghanistan for Sierra Leone. It was difficult to make my interpreter understand this, but he knew it when I asked where the ISAF would get its water, its rental cars, and its Internet service. He knew that whatever we needed would come from somewhere other than Afghanistan."<br /><br />Kipling is as apropos as ever:<br /><br />Take up the White Man's burden--<br />Send forth the best ye breed--<br />Go bind your sons to exile<br />To serve your captives' need;<br />To wait in heavy harness,<br />On fluttered folk and wild--<br />Your new-caught, sullen peoples,<br />Half-devil and half-child.<br /><br />Take up the White Man's burden--<br />In patience to abide,<br />To veil the threat of terror<br />And check the show of pride;<br />By open speech and simple,<br />An hundred times made plain<br />To seek another's profit,<br />And work another's gain.<br /><br />Take up the White Man's burden--<br />The savage wars of peace--<br />Fill full the mouth of Famine<br />And bid the sickness cease;<br />And when your goal is nearest<br />The end for others sought,<br />Watch sloth and heathen Folly<br />Bring all your hopes to nought.Dexterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07748293799490877339noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29763791.post-17369608859379281222011-01-20T14:19:25.299-05:002011-01-20T14:19:25.299-05:00Add to that the problem that the local smart kid i...<em>Add to that the problem that the local smart kid is more valuable to his tribe as a goat herder than as a generator mechanic, so he gets no education at all and you create a system of vast unusable potentials.</em><br /><br />This is an excellent point. So good, in fact, that I used it in a set of talking points I wrote for the boss this evening. My impression is that Afghanistan has a considerable merchant class, so they aren't all goatherders, but nor do they make a habit of seeking their own way in an impersonal money economy.Dr. Φhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14086783503820477029noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29763791.post-53238600995066807682011-01-20T12:46:53.793-05:002011-01-20T12:46:53.793-05:00BTW, Impressive math/stats skills. If anything it ...BTW, Impressive math/stats skills. If anything it just goes to prove that IQ is not a pre-req for placement in positions that would benefit from intelligence. Otherwise you would be assigned to be Emperor of Afghanistan. I have my doubts that Karsai could score high enough to run a porta-john.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29763791.post-70437940377498484472011-01-20T12:45:21.836-05:002011-01-20T12:45:21.836-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-29763791.post-82955399824293715252011-01-20T07:59:43.824-05:002011-01-20T07:59:43.824-05:00Add to that the problem that the local smart kid i...Add to that the problem that the local smart kid is more valuable to his tribe as a goat herder than as a generator mechanic, so he gets no education at all and you create a system of vast unusable potentials.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com