Recent US policy in Afghanistan has involved a surge of troops, drone attacks, and now even a surge in these, but what about a diplomacy and civilian surge? Well, it looks like it may be here. President Obama is supposed to approve of a long, ongoing review of Afghanistan policy in the next week and it has been reported that this review will include a major increase in civilian and State Department officials to help with reconstruction. Here is Karen DeYoung’s scoop:
Some of the proposed new civilian force in Afghanistan — diplomats, specialists from federal departments such as Agriculture and Justice, and hundreds of new “full-time, temporary” hires — would work at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, officials said. Others would be assigned to U.S. provincial reconstruction teams, or PRTs, located primarily in eastern Afghanistan, and to other efforts to build Afghan civilian capacity around the country.
It appears Bush, late in his term, signed an executive order calling for more civilian officials to embedded with Afghani PRTs, as they were in Iraq. As of right now, the PRTs in Afghanistan are dominated by the military and it is hoped these new recruits can provide valuable expertise.
DeYoung also reports that the State Department has already solicited applications for 51 new positions it expects to fill by July in Afghanistan. Overall numbers of the civilian surge are still murky, but DeYoung puts up the number of 300 as an estimate.
My greatest hope would be that officials with expertise in agriculture, the rule of law, and microeconomics could help to build a backbone to the Afghan economy and government. The aforementioned Op-Chart from yesterday stated that telecommunications and per capita income were slowing increasing in the country and it is with great hope that this influx of officials can help push things further.
