Thanks for offering up your insights on the situation in Kunar and Nuristan. Much of what you describe holds some interest but much also reflects your espousal of conventional wisdom that gets passed on from one foreigner to another without much reference to reality.

First of all without getting into details, I have had extensive engagement with AED construction projects in the region. Concerning their efforts to QA/QC projects, a while ago they had contracted with a company to provide engineers to do this on AED’s behalf in locations where it wasn’t possible for Americans to travel for various reasons. Issues arose as to the independence of those engineers who had to rely on the road contractors for living quarters, food and security when they were in the field.

Through extensive interaction with AED personnel it was painfully clear that they had little understanding of the terrain through which the roads were being designed. For example, their decision to route the road between eastern and central Nuristan over such rugged, high-altitude terrain made absolutely no sense.

Through the initial survey and design phases of the road projects in Nuristan, AED professional staff based in Kabul never traveled to any of the project areas because of security concerns. AED had one project manager based at Mehtarlam in Laghman who had responsibility for two projects in Nuristan but none of the Amerifa projects or the ABC project in the east which were handled out of the Kabul office. That may have changed.

As for your remarks about the “intangibles,” in your last two paragraphs, they do not reflect the reality. This applies particularly to your last paragraph you start with, “As the saying goes.” It is a specious characterization of the bases for affirming commonality and competition among the people of the region. For a quick and profound lesson on Afghanistan, I suggest that you Goggle the term ‘qawm’ and check out the article titled “Afghanistan and the Qawm: . . . ” at Afghanistanica.com. It may prompt you to re-consider what passes for knowledge about the way things work among the Afghans. As for most dwellers of the region never having been more than 5 km from their homes, I’d recommend that before you make such sweeping statements you make an effort to talk with Afghans themselves. You may be surprised by what you find. Reality in Afghanistan is far more interesting and complicated than the aphorisms that pass for fact among foreigners who are working in the country.

The last thing these people came together to work on was kicking the USSR out.

The saying goes “In Afghanistan, its me vs my brother; my family vs your family; our village vs their village and our province vs their province.

Worker,

I think you’re unwittingly making the opposite argument. To the contrary, the moment when the locals start “to think about their country” could also easily mean the end to any hospitality at all for the Americans and NATO.

Intangibles are great, and inspiring-sounding, but the metrics say things are deteriorating right before the eyes of the foreigners. See Barnett Rubin’s posts, quoted recently here, about the 36% jump in IED attacks over last year in RC-East. I am also slightly suspicious of comments about community spirit and taking ownership, when at the same time you say that the approach is now “hands-off,” which I take to mean that a lot of things now happen behind an opaque cultural and linguistic veil. Does anyone really know what’s going on behind it?

An excellent book, not about roads but rather the temporary work programs to offset opium eradication, is Opium Season. Josh’s description:

naïve-but-hopeful project to re-engineer southern Afghanistan’s social and economic networks on a shoestring budget slowly unravel[s].

God forbid this is the story in Kunar or Nuristan, but it is a warning against ignoring basic social and political realities in favor of the bright shining blacktop road.

I just happened upon this discussion while researching another issue and wanted to comment. I’m in Kunar now and involved in the road construction effort. You all have made very good and accurate points. I would like to point out some others.
Comparing PRT and AED roads cost is comparing apples and oranges. The specifications, testing and QA/QC requirements are very different. Most PRT roads, if paved, are DBST. AED does not approve of DBST paving. Sub-grade, sub-base and base requirements are also very different.
Kunar and Nuristan Provinces are not like the south-eastern provinces (areas around Khost, Jalalabad, etc). The best analogy for our mission is imagine running a 10-meter road through the heart of the Alps with a labor force from the 19th century and then throw in some guerrella fighters on the high ground to keep things from getting boring.
David – Your comments about…

“The Corps of Engineers manages many of its projects long-distance with its project managers seldom visiting the project.

In Nuristan Province, one contractor, Amerifa, won four multi-million dollar road projects in that province alone. Prior to those projects it had never built a project for more than a couple of hundred thousand dollars. The Corps loved Amerifa because their office in Kabul had a few talented engineers who speak good English and produced good drawings and project documents. ”

…are extremely mis-informed. The Corps regularly visits the road projects in the Kunar Province and when the widening of roads in Nuristan premits, they will go there as well. The Corps has hired local nationals with engineering background and education to visit the projects daily. Additionally, any comment that implies that the Corps is in “love” with any contractor CONUS or OCONUS is incorrect. The Corps advertises contracts and you have to go to the prom with the one that asks you.
Additionally, efficiency is measured on a different scale here than in the rest of the world including Iraq. Project schedules are worthless. The phrase “Allah willing” is the first Pashtu you learn when you arrive. Remember your workforce is still in the 19th century.
One aspect of this mission that has not been discussed in this forum if the intangable. The Corps requires the contractor to maximize the local workforce in the construction of these roads. This means Afghans from several villages work together. Nothing like this has every occurred in these provinces. The last thing these people came together to work on was kicking the USSR out. Building roads through Kunar and Nuristan is building community relationships. Several problems over property rights, water rights and the like have come up during the road construction projects as one might expect. The Corps has taken a “hands-off” approach to most of these to allow the Afghans to settle the issues among themselves. The Corps only intercedes when the contractor is at fault or abusing a situation. The Afghans are actually “taking ownership” of the road construction in their areas. So much to the point that I have seen villages that have come to the defense of contractors under attack by insurgents.
The saying goes “In Afghanistan, its me vs my brother; my family vs your family; our village vs their village and our province vs their province”. Most of the people in the Kunar and Nuristan Provinces have never been more than 5 km from their home. Building these roads causes them to think beyond their village, their valley and their province. Maybe someday they will begin to think about their country. On that day, there will be on more IED’s in Kunar. That is the day we are working for.

As stated before my experience is with the Kunar Province and I have tried to convey the fact that my opinions shared here are related to that area alone. My apologies if I indicated otherwise.
I have little knowledge of the people and efforts being undertaken outside the Kunar Province. So I would not be surprised to hear there is a COL Johnson commanding forces in RC East.
To further fan the flames, I do agree with everthing attributed to COL Johnson in Ian’s last post. It is tougher to plant IEDs in paved roads, but not impossible. The fact is that people are generally lazy and therefore will look for the easiest/quickest way to accomplish something. Thus they would rather plant IEDs in unimproved dirt roads because it is easier.
I state again my belief that roads, by themselves, are not a counter-insurgency strategy but in the Kunar Province they are an importance component.
I also believe Human Terrain Systems (if I undestand the types that Ian has mentioned) are also an important component of a counter-insurgency strategy.
My opinion is that roads will not win the war but they are part of a comprehensive strategy that will bring security, development, and governance to the Kunar Province.
Thanks to all for the healthy and professional discussion.

This may be my mistake, but there are several recent articles out that name Colonel Peter Johnson as the guy in command of six provinces eastern and southeastern provinces. A couple of them are focused on roads-here’s today’s Reuters piece that editorializes about roads without indicating that it’s opinion, and then quotes Col. Johnson for support:

Better roads are essential not only for the economy — so that farmers and merchants can get produce to markets more easily and importers can bring vital foodstuffs into the landlocked country — but also for security, since police and the army can get more quickly to remote, unstable areas.

Paved roads also make it much harder for the Taliban to plant improvised explosive devices (IEDs) — nearly 750 of which detonated across Afghanistan last year, causing hundreds of deaths. Planting them on pot-holed, dirt tracks is easy.

“I can’t tell you how important roads are,” said Colonel Pete Johnson, the commander of U.S. forces in southeast Afghanistan, where development lags central and northern areas and paved roads are minimal.

“If we pave roads, there’s almost an automatic shift of IEDs to other areas because it makes it so much more difficult for the enemy to emplace them … Roads here mean security,” he told Reuters in an interview last week.

Cursory googling reveals that even $800k/km for roads would be a huge bargain in the west, where the number is in the millions. So fine. I also have no doubt that roads make life better–that’s a no-brainer and I do not dispute what you are saying about the improvements in pregnant mothers reaching medical help, etc.

I think what is at issue, and what Josh is particularly incensed by, is that roads are being presented as a successful counterinsurgency strategy. Especially when that presentation is at the expense of far more nuanced approaches (like the Human Terrain Systems among others) that have been denigrated by the very journalists who are talking up roads as a grand solution to IED bombs. The stats simply haven’t been presented to bear that out. Rather, the opposite looks true.

In short–roads are nice, I’m sure, but they won’t win the war.

Both Kunar and Paktika (or Ghazni, or Khost) are all in RC-East, and bear consideration together to a certain degree. People on the ground just as much as you, like Harry above, worry that the benefits of road construction are so uneven as to place doubt on their overall utility. Like you, I disagree, but I don’t think you can write that off so flippantly. I would love any data you might have or can point me to that would help address this — I’ve found it a bear getting in touch with PRTs from CONUS.

Uhm, there is a Colonel Pete Johnson in Khost who at least some news outlets say commands U.S. forces in the area. He’s the new one from the 101st… hence (probably) Ian’s belief that the recent wave of news about this topic originates from him.

Look, no one is here to deny the progress in Kunar, or in Khost or anywhere else. I know you read this blog, so you know that my constant complaint is the neglect paid to the real goings on in Afghanistan in American media. And you’re right, too, that most coverage is heavily biased on the fighting, and not on the reconstruction.

But that doesn’t mean that simply stating progress happens is real. Similarly, where is this monitoring? I don’t doubt the PRTs have their own monitoring systems in place, but this doesn’t make it into the public sphere. Such monitoring would surely shed some light onto the actual role roads play in the reconstruction effort, wouldn’t it?

Actually a very recent study of the national and local trends in Afghanistan (pdf, large) by CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman makes it a point to complain about the lack of trend-monitoring in public, unclassified government reports. That is a major issue, and gets at the underlying complaint I have here: the public data sources we have say things are falling apart as investment flags and insurgent attacks increase. Clearly the government wants to make the case otherwise, and it has every right to — in fact, I would expect it to.

But simple declairing it is better doesn’t mean it is. This isn’t about who is working hard or who is being earnest. Good intentions are great, but they don’t get at effectiveness, or at addressing root concerns and causes. Those are critically and universally missing from coverage here, including from Kilcullen (who relies on his reputation, rather than facts and argumentation, to stake his claime).

My sole complaint is the highlighting of IED attack reduction as a direct effect of road paving. It just does not make any sense generally, and especially when considered alongside the experience with IEDs in other countries. It could be the case, I don’t deny that. But no one is making that case.

And, to bring it out to one of the macro-trends I am tracking here, such a glaring logical hole gets completely glossed over by reporters who seem perfectly comfortable service as PR firms for the government. That’s them being too lazy to do their jobs. Imagine the reaction if the PRT just sat in its base and never made any patrols or met with any locals or contractors, and simply distributed CERP funds with no followup or thought behind it. That’s the kind of professional negligence I’m talking about here.

Some of the roads through FATA are already paved aiding the ability to transport material into the region and thereby reducing the costs. For example the road to the Nawa Pass is paved on the Pakistan side and is an unimproved dirt road on the Afghan side. All material and equipment comes from or through Pakistan which also increases the cost.

I don’t believe you can compare costs for construction in FATA with the costs in Kunar. If the costs in FATA are higher than elsewhere in Pakistan due to higher transport costs, higher raw material costs, and higher administrative fees then it is not unreasonable to expect this issue to be worse as you cross into Afghanistan.

Kunar is actually in the Northeast, vice the Southeast, and don’t recall a COL Johnson who was either commanding forces or running a concerted PR campaign of any sort in RC East or the Kunar Province.

You are correct that there is a demand for roads, but that demand is based on a number of things. I wouldn’t reference the local shura leaders, district governors, and provincial governor as the “regional power elite” or say they are being personally enriched by the projects. But that is probably because I am an optimist.

I have had many folks, in the US, tell me they had no idea we were even building roads, bridges, schools, clinics, wells, government centers, etc. They hear very little about the efforts by the numerous other governmental and non-governmental organizations to improve the lives of Afghans. They do hear about the combat operations and the deaths, but hear nothing about the benefits that are reaching the population of approx. 380,000 in Kunar. For example, the Pech River road has had a direct influence on the ability of expectant mothers to get to the hospital in Asadabad improving the chance of a live birth. I do know that many reporters came through the Kunar Province and that the improvements are being reported in some areas. But in my opinion the successes and improvements are undereported, whatever the reason.

Frequent monitoring of the progress and the quality of all the projects, coupled with good schedules and cost breakdowns allowed us to effectively manage the contractors and “protect” the project from corruption. As an example, buildings that were not being built correctly were torn down and rebuilt, at the contractors cost. I don’t believe the poor quality was the result of corruption, but in most cases are the result of societal issues (ie. cement is expensive and has to be imported from Pakistan therefore the mentality was to use cement sparingly). This issue was addressed by managing expectations at the start of projects, providing training by qualified personnel, and establishing an adult construction training center in Kunar.

The comments that projects are not overseen carefully, run inefficiently, and run slowly are, for the most part, incorrect. There are differences in the way projects are contracted, based in large part on the funds utilized, and managed. The $800k per km was an outlyer (spelling) and probably has more to do with the difficult location of the project (Nuristan) and security situation in that area. I won’t claim things are perfect but a lot of folks are working hard to keep things on track and get the projects done right. Not sure what a road in the US would cost….and wonder how an average cost of $300k per km for a DBST road built on the side of a mountain in Afghanistan stands up. The work might be similar but the conditions are very different which would have to be accounted for if a comparison study was done.

Following is an excerpt from a well-informed 2007 study assessing costs in the FATA where labor costs are roughly the same as in Kunar/Nuristan. The terrain and security issues aren’t too different. This amount seems to be an appropriate standard for assessing costs in this part of Afghanistan:

“The cost of road construction in the FATA is higher than anywhere else in Pakistan. This high cost—$123,000 for one kilometer of blacktopped road and $86,000 for a kilometer of shingle road—is driven by higher transport and raw material costs and by costly administrative fees.”

1) Afghans in southeast Afghanistan, for whatever reason, want roads. Whether that’s because it enriches the regional power elite through mismanagement and corruption, or because it does bring actual economic benefits to a lot of people, there’s a demand.

2) The US is doing its very best to make it look like it’s meeting that demand. They flood the projects with money; don’t oversee it carefully, letting it run inefficiently and slowly (up to 800k per km, per Alan’s comment); and then, and only then, they make the roads a piece of the “counterinsurgency” for the purposes of Western media consumption (aided by reporters with little-to-no local knowledge who must take it all on faith).

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the whole situation, but it does look like this is a concerted PR campaign being run by Colonel Pete Johnson, the commander of U.S. forces in southeast Afghanistan. The PR campaign serves two purposes, to make Afghans in the southeast feel like they’re getting something, and to demonstrate the the military is not just banging down the locals’ doors. But everything I’ve read so far makes me think that the rise of the Neo-Taliban and their gradual success over the last few years has had little to do with successful development projects.