Lanterna Rally

Author: Carter Malkasian

Publisher:

Published: 2009-03-31

Total Pages: 64

ISBN-13: 9781461108078

The first provincial reconstruction team (PRT) stood up in January 2003 in the city of Gardez. A novel concept, PRTs combined civilian and military personnel into a single entity with the purpose of improving security, governance, and economic development. The idea was that PRTs would be able to get into areas where there was little or no presence on the part of the Afghan government or the development community and jumpstart reconstruction. In short order, the PRTs blossomed: seven more were established in 2003 and 11 were added to the list in 2004. Today there are 26 in Afghanistan: 12 under U.S. commanders and 14 under commanders from another country within the Coalition. In the meantime, the PRTs evolved into much more than an agency with guns that could go to areas too dangerous for civilians and jumpstart development. No longer do they simply pave the way for civilian agencies to step in and do the real reconstruction work. Instead, the PRTs have become America's primary tool for using large scale reconstruction to improve security in Afghanistan; the executors of the softer side of counterinsurgency. Yet questions remain. It is not clear that PRTs should be filling such a large role. Do they really make a difference, particularly in terms of improving security or the capacity of the Afghan government to govern? Even if they do, could not another organization, like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) or the Afghan government itself, do the job just as well, if not better? The PRTs hardly stand alone. In addition, USAID, the Afghan government, and even U.S. battalions do reconstruction work in Afghanistan's provinces. USAID has been conducting projects in Afghanistan since 2002. Few provinces have not benefited from their work. The Afghan government has the National Solidarity Program, which attempts to connect local villages and shuras with the central government. These are just the most prominent development players. Numerous nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) plus the United Nations (UN) do a wide range of reconstruction work as well. The answers to the questions about the usefulness of PRTs affect U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Any surge of U.S. forces could be accompanied by an increase in reconstruction funding. If the PRTs make a difference and are unique, then arguably a large share of new reconstruction activities should be handled by them. If, on the other hand, PRTs do not make a difference and are not unique, then new reconstruction should be handled by other organizations. We conducted field research for over two months in 2007 and two months in 2008 with four different PRTs-Khost, Kunar, Ghazni, and Nuristan. We then augmented that field research with interviews with the leadership of 10 other PRTs. That research suggests PRTs do make a difference, at least in three provinces- Khost, Kunar, and Ghazni. In Khost, an aggressive project "blitz" corresponded with fewer attacks and the emergence of a real partnership between tribes and the government. In Kunar, road projects in two major river valleys led to a rise in local community political participation and local resistance to insurgent activity. Tribes in at least five different districts responded to attacks on projects-roads, bridges, and schools-by coming out of their homes and shooting at insurgents. In Ghazni, PRT projects appear to have helped counter rising violence, and the PRT's focus on reducing corruption and improving Afghan public health capacity can be said to have improved governance. Though we have not reviewed the history of the other PRTs in detail, our interviews with commanders and civilian representatives from PRTs in the east, south, and west do not disprove what we found and, in some cases, even support it.