James Dobbins: In Bosnia and Other Trouble Spots the Lesson Learned Was that Security Comes First ... Then Reconstruction

Jams Dobbins, in the NYT (Sept. 22, 2004):

[James Dobbins, director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the RAND Corporation, was special envoy for the Clinton and Bush administrations on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Haiti, Kosovo and Somalia.]

Last week, the Bush administration announced plans to change how it will spend nearly 20 percent of the $18.4 billion in approved aid for Iraq. The money will be shifted from rebuilding infrastructure to security, from capital improvements to employment generation, and from physical construction to social engineering projects. If these priorities had been adopted sooner, the situation in Iraq would probably be better than it is today.

Administration officials have explained that deteriorating security requires increased efforts to train and equip Iraqi police and military forces, and makes the protection of large construction projects difficult. They have also expressed the need for programs to get young Iraqi men off the streets and employed.

And indeed, America's plans to focus aid on modernizing Iraq's electric grid, sewage systems and communications infrastructure at American taxpayers' expense have been an aberration - out of keeping with recent American nation-building experience in places like Bosnia, Haiti, and Kosovo and with post-World War II strategies for democratizing Germany and Japan.

The object of nation-building is to return power to a competent, responsible and representative local government as soon as possible.

In a country like Iraq where the governmental structure has collapsed, the first priority is to establish public security. Second is to begin rebuilding the local structures for governance. Third is to create an environment in which basic commerce can occur - where people can buy and sell goods and services and get paid in a stable currency. Fourth is to promote political reforms, stimulate the growth of civil society, build political parties and a free press, prepare for elections and organize representative government. Fifth, and last, is improving roads, bridges, electricity, water, telephones and the rest.

This last category of spending normally comes last because such projects take a long time to complete and the payoff on investment is very slow. These projects are also very expensive, far more than other objectives. And unlike investments in other sectors, reconstruction projects are ultimately profitable and can normally pay for themselves. That is why money for large-scale construction projects routinely comes from loans financed through the World Bank or regional development banks, not from grants by donor governments....