Book review: Little America

Authored by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in 2012 (ISBN 978-0-307-95714-6).

This work, subtitled "the war within the war for Afghanistan", summarizes the United States' progress in Afghanistan since 2001.  Or, progress in Afghanistan since 1946, when Mohammed Zahir Shah, the then-king of Afghanistan, launched a effort to modernize his country and increase its (and his) influence.  He invited American contracting company Knudsen-Morrison, which had recently completed the Hoover Dam, to build canals (for irrigation) and dams (for irrigation and electricity).  The effort was barely successful because the land identified for irrigation and crops was too shallow to hold enough water for sustained agriculture.  The phrase "Little America" refers to the new city built by Knudsen for its contractors and their families, complete with swimming pools and movie theaters, in the middle of the desert.  Good intentions leading to ...

... a subsequent American effort in the early 2000s, continuing today, to both improve the lot of ordinary Afghanis and prevent the Taliban and Al-Queda from using Afghanistan as a terrorist training camp.  We have seen mixed success on the second item, as our military activities have kept the Taliban on the run, though at tremendous cost in dollars, lives, and soldiers' legs.  On the first, helping Afghanis, we have done little.

First, attempting to encourage Western-style democracy is likely hopeless.  Unlike Iraq, which had a functioning (if despotic) civil administration under Saddam Hussein, Afghanistan has never had anything like that.  Most citizens are farmers possessing only a vague familiarity with hospitals, schools or electricity.  There are few natives who have experience as mayors, hospital administrators, water board officials, public utility commissions or school superintendents.  The government of Hamid Karzai is understood to be corrupt and inefficient and preferred only when the other option presented is the Taliban.  In short, bringing Western-style democracy, even if desired by Afghanis, represents a formidable challenge.

That challenge is made worse by the parties that are implementing it:  the U.S. State Department and the Department of Defense.  In these pages author Chandrasekaran catalogs the ineptitude, waste and senseless conflict between these two organizations.  Private contractors brought in to perform bits and pieces of the task perhaps do slightly better.  The problem is human:  we are fallible, and when lots of us get together to accomplish some task we make lots of mistakes.  The U.S. government is enormous and is just not effective at most tasks because of its size.  Private contractors are smaller and can, under some circumstances, operate more effectively.  But even here, the scale and size necessary to work in an undeveloped country half a world away means bureaucracy no matter whether the actor is public or private.  Add to this the normally short-sighted American voter who (rationally) distrusts his or her government and it is hard to see how any President, including Bush and Obama, could be successful here.

This book could have been shorter.  It would have at least been less depressing.  Kudos to the author, a reporter for the Washington Post, for the hard work necessary to uncover these facts.