A connectivity strategy based on infrastructure, transit, IT? Some crazy stuff, my friends.
Thursday, July 8, 2010 at 12:07AM 
I've been using this slide for two years in the brief, and made the argument in "Great Powers."
Similar minds reaching similar conclusions: Central Asia hands at Johns Hopkins, as cited by David Ignatius in a recent WAPO column, sent on to me by Our Man in Kabul.
See if this sounds familiar: a regionalization strategy that emphasizes economic connectivity over kinetics.
From Ignatius:
The most useful analysis I've seen recently is "The Key to Success in Afghanistan: A Modern Silk Road Strategy." It was prepared by the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. It also had major input from the U.S. Central Command, which oversees the war.
The Silk Road study tries to visualize the kind of Afghanistan that might exist after U.S. troops begin coming home in July 2011. Instead of being a lawless frontier, this post-conflict Afghanistan would be a transit route for Eurasia, providing trade corridors north and south, east and west.
To make this transport-led strategy work, Afghanistan would need to build more roads, railways and pipelines. A hypothetical railway map shows routes that connect Iran with India, Russia with Pakistan, China with the Arabian Sea. It knits together the rising powers of this region and makes Afghanistan a hub rather than a barrier.
I first heard discussion of this modern Silk Road idea from Ashraf Ghani, a former Afghan finance minister. He made a powerful analogy to America's own development: What secured our lawless Wild West frontier was the transcontinental railroad in 1869. With trade and economic growth came stability.
Comparing nation-building in Afghanistan to the settling of the American West? Who comes up with such crazy stuff!
You know, when I first started briefing that Wild West stuff about five years ago, people just shook their heads like it was nonsense to compare the integration of the United States to the integration of globalization.
Now it's the smartest analysis seen in a while by someone as astute at Ignatius.
I love the report from Johns Hopkins, which comes with a dedicating quote from Petraeus.
I mean, check this out from the table of contents:
III. What the United States Should Do Now: An Initiative to Reconnect Afghanistan with East and West .............................................................................. 32
Promoting Afghanistan‘s Role in Road Transit and Trade ........................ 33
Connecting Afghanistan by Rail ................................................................... 37
Connecting Afghanistan through Information Technology ..................... 40
Reconnect east and west, promote road transit and trade, connect by rail, connect by IT.
Smart stuff indeed. We can only hope Petraeus gets the freedom and resources and time to make it happen to whatever extent is possible.
Reader Comments (3)
A possible problem with the Ghani/Ignatius comparison of the railroad/lawless Wild West frontier and the Modern Silk Road for Afghanistan and Central Asia:
With the coming of the railroad in the old West, the "foreigners" (the American explorers, adventurers, businessmen and settlers) did very well indeed. However, the coming of the railroad meant death and destruction to the indigenous populations -- and to their way of life -- these people being unwilling or unable to adapt.
Likewise with the Modern Silk Road and Afghanistan, should we not expect that, while the foreiners may do very well indeed, the indigenous populations -- being either unable or unwilling to adapt -- will, like the American Indians above, simply loose their lands to foreigners and foreign interests, see their way of life destroyed and, thereby, become a decimated and destroyed people?
Could this be the fate of other, similarly challenged Gap populations?
Good point, Bill. Remember, though, that initially the native Americans welcomed Europeans and were willing to share the land. What destroyed them was the European sense of entitlement, sense of superiority and conquisidor mentality. Let's learn from our wretched mishandling of the Native Americans at the birth of our nation (until today no formal apology has been made) and engage in intensive and genuine consultation with all the tribes of Afghanistan. I would guess that at least 50% of the population ~ the women ~ are not happy with the status quo. Developing this Silk Road idea sounds to me like a strategy that will work if we remember to give the natives a true voice in this process. Very exciting possibilities!
Good Silk Road history web site:
http://www.ess.uci.edu/~oliver/silk.html
Note the SysAdmin insights of Kublai Khan and Marco Polo in understanding tribes' economics and social factors and finding ways to move them toward closer cooperation. Earlier Mongol Khans had used brute force.