 Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to first begin by acknowledging the celebrate of the Australians on the traditional lands we meet and its cultures amongst the oldest continuing cultures in human history. Your Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, it's a great pleasure this evening to welcome you and our speaker, Ambassador Carl Eikenbury and his wife, Mrs Ching Eikenbury, to the Australian National University. It is indeed a privilege to have a speaker as distinguished as Ambassador Eikenbury for what I am sure will be a most informative presentation on the situation in Afghanistan. I would also particularly like to welcome the Ambassador of the United States and the Ambassador of Afghanistan as well as other members of the diplomatic community here this evening. Without further ado, I'd now like to call upon the Director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies, Professor Amel Sykl himself, a renowned scholar on Afghanistan, to introduce Ambassador Eikenbury's presentation. Thank you very much, Chancellor. Ladies and gentlemen, I'm truly honored to introduce Ambassador Carl Eikenbury who requires actually no introduction. He's already become a household name not only in Afghanistan but in the wider world in the last many years. But just to refresh your memory, Ambassador Eikenbury is one of the United States most distinguished military officer and diplomat. He's also one of the most decorated military officer and diplomat. He's got more awards than the years that I have spent as an academic here. I don't think I'm going to get anything again, but just to refresh your memory, Carl Eikenbury is the pain-distinguished lecturer at the Freeman Spugley Institute for International Studies at Stanford University at the moment. Prior to his appointment at Stanford, he served as the US Ambassador to Afghanistan from May 2009 until July 2011, where he led a civilian search directed by President Barack Obama to reverse an insurgent momentum and set the conditions for transition to full Afghan sovereignty by the end of 2014. Before his appointment as Chief of Mission in Kabul, Ambassador Eikenbury had a 35-year career in the United States Army, retiring in April 2009 with the rank of Lieutenant General. His military operational post included commander and staff officer with mechanisms like Airborne and Ranger in their infantry units in the continental US, Hawaii, Korea, Italy and Afghanistan as a commander of American-led coalition forces from 2005 to 2007. He has served in various policy and political military positions, including Deputy Chairman of the North Atlantic 3D Organization and NATO's Military Committee in Brussels. Of course, I can go on and talk about his other appointments, but I just wanted to sort of escape that thought and let you know that Ambassador Eikenbury is a graduate of the US Military Academy. He has a master's degree from Harvard University and East Asia Studies and Stanford University in Political Science and was a national security fellow at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. An interpreter's certificate in Mandarin Chinese from the British Foreign Command Office while studying at the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense Chinese Language School in Hong Kong and has an advanced degree in Chinese history from Nanjing University and the People's Republic of China. He's fluent in Mandarin. Our former Prime Minister... Ambassador Eikenbury serves as a trustee for the International Institute for Strategic Studies, is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and Council of American Ambassadors and was previously the President of the Foreign Area Officers Association. He has published numerous articles on US military training, tactics and strategy and on Chinese ancient history and Asia Pacific security issues. He has a commercial pilot's license, where you have a fallback position and an instrument rating and also enjoys sailing and scuba diving. That I cannot identify with. And of course he's married to Mrs. Chen Eikenbury. But Ambassador Eikenbury mastered the Chinese language before. This current visit to the A&M as a result of several years of communication between Ambassador Eikenbury and myself. I first met Ambassador Eikenbury at a conference in Istanbul in 2005. He walked into the room as a three star general with his full uniform to talk about Afghanistan. And I was sitting there and I said, oh my God, another American general who's now going to tell us how wonderful the United States is doing in Afghanistan and everything is in order. But soon I discovered that Ambassador Eikenbury is one of those distinguished generals who has mastered all the intellectual skills that's really needed to make progress possible in a country like Afghanistan. And he came across a somebody who is very much on the top of the subject. And I thought to myself, if the United States can have generals like Carl Eikenbury then I think the world will be a safer place to live. And from that point I thought it was my duty to do whatever I can to get Carl Eikenbury to come in business at A&M. And in the meantime then we met in a number of other conferences and one of them was, I think, in Brussels. And I gave a talk on Afghanistan as well as on Iran. And Ambassador Eikenbury walked across and said, I would like to have a talk on Iran. And I said, wow, Ambassador Eikenbury has a much wider interest. And from that point I thought, well, I might be able to indoctrinate him. I gave him a few books from Iran that I've written on Afghanistan and so on. But it is indeed a great privilege and a great honor to have you. And I'm so pleased that you've been able to make time for a very busy schedule to come and visit us. In fact, Ambassador Eikenbury and I were supposed to be in Paltz Dam at the conference in the last two days. But I'm so glad we didn't go. And Ambassador Eikenbury tonight is going to combine the skills of a brilliant diplomat and an Amateur Officer to inform us on the topic of assisting counterinsurgency in a state building effort in Afghanistan. I cannot think of a most qualified lesson to speak on this topic than Ambassador Eikenbury. Would you please join me in welcoming her? Thank you. Thank you very much for those kind words. I have to tell you, after that introduction, which is one of the kindest introductions I've ever had, they can only go downhill for a minute. So you're free to leave if you'd like to have this juncture. First of all, let me thank you. Vice-hands were young. And let me thank you, Professor Seikal, for inviting Jing and I to come here to invite us to Australia National University. What a prestigious university indeed this is. This morning, I had the honor of meeting some of the faculty and the senior researchers and the students at the Center for Middle East and Islamic Studies. I have to tell you that's an extraordinarily inspirational group there. I'm hoping that tomorrow to have an opportunity to talk to see how we might further enrich ties between Stanford University and the Center in the future. Six Nobel laureates in the ranks of faculty, former students, and I was telling Jing this afternoon, I'm hoping that some of the prestige rubs off on me before I head back home here. By way of background for myself, I mean he's very kind truly in his introductory remarks. After 9-1-1, the United States of America indeed the world of Australia, many individuals took great detours in their lives. For myself, for my wife, we took a great detour, as I mean it said, that prior to that time most of my military career, that juncture had been as a serving operational infantry officer in various assignments around the world. And my second track that I was on as we talk about was an Asia Pacific and China specialist. I was in the Pentagon on 9-1-1 when American Airlines Flight 77 commandeered by an al-Qaeda terrorist plowed in to the building just beneath the office that I was in. I was very fortunate to get out of the building alive. I was on the third floor. There were two killed on the third floor. Most of the casualties were on the second first floor just beneath me, but in an adjacent office we lost two. I could never drain talking about detours then. For the next decade, eight of the next ten years were to be either living in Afghanistan, two tours as a military commander, two tours as the ambassador, five or ten years. But in addition, three more years were spent in assignments outside of Afghanistan, but where a majority of my portfolio was involved with Afghanistan, a year on the Army staff right after 9-1-1 where I was involved in the planning for the conduct of operations into Afghanistan in the initial year of the mission. And then two years, as I'm going to say, in Brussels, Belgium, at NATO headquarters, where well over 50% of my portfolio was Afghanistan. Now, having said all of that, I'm by no means an expert on Afghanistan. I'm not a speaker of the Daria Pashto language. I wasn't raised in Afghanistan. Any foreigner who I think says they have a mastery of the complex politics that is Afghanistan, well, they need to have a bit of a check to validate that claim. I'm reminded of a humorous story when I first arrived in Afghanistan on my first tour of duty in 2002. They're meeting with Lieutenant General Asifi, who was the commander of the new Afghan border police. So a week on the ground in Afghanistan, I'd only had a month's notice I was going, so I devoured about 10 books on the country and got into Afghanistan like I always do, just plow ahead, immerse yourself and try to figure things out. So here was this dinner with the Lieutenant General Asifi. I had an interpreter, a doctor, a good young man, a great interpreter. He had about a 98% accuracy on interpreting, but he was 110% when it came to emotion, being able to express himself, being able to capture the nuance of the conversation, anger, happiness, but with Dr. Najib, young Dr. Najib, that as he would get more excited more into the conversation, that accuracy would come down from 98% to 95% and so there was a bit of a trade here. Now back to Lieutenant General Asifi. I had turned to Lieutenant General Asifi through my good interpreter, speaking in Dari, English, and said, General Asifi, can you tell me a little bit about Afghanistan history? Can you tell me about the people? I'm going to be working closely with the people, with the new Afghan army. Tell me a little bit about your culture and your traditions. And he warmed the topic, and accordingly Dr. Najib warmed. And as he warmed, the accuracy started to decline. So Lieutenant General Asifi reached a culminating point over the course of about 15 minutes, just a good person excited about his country, excited and proud of the Afghan people. And corollary what he was saying is that the Afghan people, of course, have this long tradition, this long culture of being great hosts to foreigners when they come to their country. But Dr. Najib, when we got to this culminating point, said, General Asifi just said that the Afghan people have a long and a very proud history of inviting foreigners to their country and then hospitalizing them. I think what he meant to say, inviting them to their country and showing them great hospitality. But back to by no means an expert on Afghanistan to this day, I can't say with a 100% accuracy but that was the case. Let me then start with some brief formal remarks here. And what I'd like to do is provide you with an assessment with an update of where I think we are in Afghanistan. We, speaking especially for our Australian colleagues and to fellow Americans who are here for a broader coalition, where are we in Afghanistan? After our initial intervention into the country in October 2001, I'll cover two topics. First of all, I'd like to talk about continuities and maybe more importantly, discontinuities in our strategies that we've had in Afghanistan since 2001. And I'll lay those out for you. I'm hoping that a review over a 10-year period of time of these various strategies with the discontinuities will be useful to this group to give you a context then of measuring where we are in Afghanistan today. Also importantly to understand when it comes to the Afghan people there's this great frustration that comes with 10 years now in Afghanistan as they too have witnessed these discontinuities in strategy. Secondly then, I'd like to even more briefly talk about four challenges that we're facing in Afghanistan today at this moment as we proceed with the transition to full Afghan sovereignty by the end of 2014. First of all, regarding our strategies in Afghanistan since 9-1-1, I said I'd like to submit up front that we've had several at times disjointed strategies and these have suffered from misalignment I believe at times from N's ways and means. Let me by oversimplifying talk about four different periods of time in Afghanistan. First, 2001-2003. At that time our strategic objective was following quickly upon the attack upon the United States by El Qaeda, the defeat of El Qaeda and the elimination of the remnants of the Taliban regime that had provided sanctuary to El Qaeda and remembering with that sanctuary that they had joined inside of Afghanistan their ability to plan, plot and direct attacks like the awful attack of 9-1-1. Characterized by a very light footprint on the ground of international coalition forces characterized by a light footprint on the diplomatic development side. Remember that very, very eminent UN Special Representative and Secretary of General glad to miss respect for Ladd-Tarr for HEMI he also was the advocate of the light footprint. There was a general consensus that a light footprint was the touch that was needed at that moment. There was not really in-depth consideration of what was being given in the years 2001-2003 about state building and nation building. Let me give you three quick examples of being there on the ground at that period of time manifestations of the idea about the light footprint that we could succeed in Afghanistan without having to invest a lot of resources. Number one, the great project of the Ring Road in Afghanistan, they're refurbishing a building of a ring road stretching from Kabul to Kanahar Karat Mazari Street looping back to Kabul. With good reason, President Bush's administration in the early years of our intervention in Afghanistan said this is a hugely symbolic project and indeed it was. But I remember distinctly on the ground as a major general at that time not working in the field of development but in a lot of meetings where this was talked about endless talking about the progress on the ring road very little talk about building political institutions in Afghanistan. Second example, as we're on the ground in Afghanistan pushing hard against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban remnants at that time without any forces and military expediency, what do we do? We turn to various warlords and make them our ally, call upon their militia forces and we employ them in the fight against the Taliban and indeed it was expediency that came at a cost because it's some of those warlord leaders whose own misconduct in the 1990s during the era of the Civil War led to the rise of the Taliban as a counter-reaction to the rapacious rule of the Uyghur being warlords. Third example, Afghan National Army. Some of you may know, some may not know that today we're talking about an Afghan army of in the strength perhaps by 2014 20,000, maybe 20,000 200, I'm sorry, 200,000 perhaps 220,000 back in October and November of 2002 as then finance minister Ashraf Ghani and then Major General Carl Eikenberry we're sitting around talking in advance of the Bond 2 conference about what should be the size and capabilities of the Afghan National Army. Believe it or not, we said 70,000 is the right figure. 70,000 is about right. Let's be prepared because we know several of the commanders of the Afghan forces will want to go higher. 80,000 max, that's all that's needed. Capabilities, well they don't need counter-insurgency capabilities. We didn't even talk about counter-insurgency capabilities because the Taliban had been defeated at that point in time. We talked about building an Afghan National Army that would have in Kabul available to the president, available to the central government a first among equal army corps a formation of about 10,000 about white and American white military division. And that would be highly mobile and guess what their main attribute would be? Quickly be able to get on airplanes or on trucks and move to an area of the country where there might be a power broker who's contemplating breaking away from the central government. And here we are today talking about an army of 200,000, 220,000 whose capabilities must include the ability to fight the resilient Taliban. Also during that first period of time 2001 to 2003 I have to say with regard to Pakistan our entire dialogue with Pakistan was about the defeat of Al-Qaeda, attack Al-Qaeda. We were not thinking about an Afghan Taliban sanctuary inside of Pakistan. The second period of time, 2003 to 2008 at that point the security situation is starting to manifestly decline. It's becoming evident by 2006 that the security situation is trending in the wrong direction better than it is today but downward trending. But at the same time we have NATO transition going on. So as I'm in command in Afghanistan I'm looking in southern Afghanistan I can see trend lines starting to decline. Again not like it is today. But at the same time we have a lot of NATO forces coming in non-US NATO forces relieving the US coalition and the US will concentrate in eastern Afghanistan. So at that point in time security situation is beginning to decline. It doesn't become apparent however until 2007 to 2008 that we have a very severe problem. We're talking more during those five years about the so-called hardening of the Afghan state developing an Afghan state now with sufficient quality that it will prove resilient against efforts of international terrorism to come back into Afghanistan. But we're not really well defining exactly what the attributes of that state should be. State and nation building in the dialogue with Washington DC at least and most of my remarks tonight will certainly be from the US perspective. Most of the state and we're talking increasingly to Washington DC about state building and nation building but what we find is that we don't have sufficient resources and once the war in Iraq begins in 2003 but especially in 2004 and beyond where the situation in Iraq is really declining, resources that could have been made available to the Afghan theater are going to the west. Contradictions begin to emerge during this period of time and start to get rather severe in terms of what would be international US NATO goals and objectives for nation building, state building political institutions economic development and President Karzai's view and the Afghan elite view. Also during this period of time lastly with regard to Pakistan it's becoming more evident to Washington DC that the sanctuary that the Afghan insurgents enjoy inside of Pakistan have to be addressed but greatly perplexed about how to deal with this severe problem. Third period of time 2009 to 2011 my period of time as ambassador and this is during the first two years of the President Obama's administration President Obama had campaigned as candidate Obama about Afghanistan being the war of necessity compared to Iraq. A war in which the outcomes directly to US vital national interests he defined war up to that point as having been a somewhat neglected theater of war and under resource. There were many more explicit discussions at this juncture now about how to harden Afghanistan. Again what should be the capabilities and the attributes of the Afghan state so that it would be strong enough sustainable that it would be able to resist future possible incursions in return of international terrorism. Also this administration increasingly clear and rather open and blunt about the challenges now emanating from sanctuary Pakistan and those who have been reading about Secretary of State Clinton's recent trip to Pakistan will see that that's really an evolution of President Obama's policies when he first came into office. The security situation up front in President Obama's review of the security situation in Afghanistan revealed through military assessments and assessment that I shared was that the security situation was approaching a very dangerous tipping point. Our military the US military and many non-US NATO military commanders all argued for a robust increase in forces and the resources to complement those military forces consistent with our counter insurgency doctrine. And there was a consensus now that security had deteriorated to a point that additional forces were absolutely essential. The belief was broadly stated that without improved security nothing else would be possible. Nice to talk about political solutions nice to talk about further economic development but a consensus that security had now deteriorated greatly and that needed to be reversed before we needed to have the space to window the opportunity to talk about political solutions. So we searched forward to arrest the Taliban momentum and help build the strength of the Afghan national security forces the police and army of Afghanistan to increase the government of Afghanistan's governing capacity but again the specific goals when we talked about governments and developments they weren't granularly defined I leave Afghanistan after two additional years now as the ambassador quite candidly saying I'm not sure that they can be granularly defined. On the civilian side then it was broadly understood as I came in as the US ambassador that we needed to come in behind our military wherever they were going to apply concentrated force in a counter insurgency campaign places like Kailman province places like some sectors in the order of the province where the Australian forces have fought so well and we would come in behind the military and provide development assistance and do the best we could to help the Afghans establish some kind of local governance authority at the national level we knew again broadly the importance of strengthening key departments and agencies of the state bolstering the rule of law helping to fortify critical political institutions and promoting economic growth so how do we on the civilian side go about meeting this challenge then quantitatively qualitatively briefly first of all quantitatively very impressive buildup supported by the department of states supported by president Obama's administration that went far beyond the department of state including the department of treasury the drug enforcement administration federal bureau of investigation USAID the department of agriculture when Jake and I arrived in Kabul in May of 2009 we had about 325 civilians on the ground when we departed we had about 1300 civilians it's a very impressive increase now having come from a military background I know as I looked at it the military commander would say will you surge from 325 to 1300 and my response probably as a military commander would have been wonderful now how are you going to get the other 98,000 civilians so that you can equal military strength on the ground what I did learn as a military as a civilian ambassador however first of all this is not easy work it may be the expeditionary the Australian military it exists not to fight on the Australian homeland but it exists to deploy to provide extended security and that's how you and that's how we defend our homeland civilian organizations of government outside of to a degree the department of state to a degree USAID is not designed to surge and deploy abroad into places like Afghanistan and the FBI agent say coming into Afghanistan and serving the embassy or serving outside of our embassy as part of our civilian mission that FBI agent needs to be recruited they need to be trained to get ready to go to Afghanistan they need to then when they arrive have a place to sleep a place to eat and they also need to be acclimated to the situation in the contrary and then integrated into the team not easy work we also task organized our civilian teams in ways that I think were rather innovative in the first instance when I first took over as ambassador every military commander at senior levels when asked you have a civilian counterpart would say no I have a civilian advisor I have a political advisor and that's the way that we organize I changed that as the ambassador to some consternation from my military colleagues actually quickly they accepted the reform and the reform was this that I gave every military commander a civilian fully empowered counterpart we changed it from no more political advisors now we have senior civilian representatives and they have set a delegated authorities that I as ambassador on paper have signed to them every civilian in their domain coterminous with their military partner was under their many ambassadoral authorities resources that were being spent in that particular domain fell under the review of that one civilian so that was one reform that we made we were able to husband our limited resources and give a more coherent unified voice to the military secondly in terms of our organization we organized functionally as opposed to more industrial age we organized according to the department agency that sent you from Washington DC to join the team there and so we have for instance one functionally organized agricultural group well it had USAID an agency that was doing agricultural work we had the group led by somebody from our department of agriculture we had military that had agricultural national guard teams on the field and they fell under the civilians control we organized infrastructure teams and so forth so we took a look at what are the real problem sets as we like to say inside of Afghanistan and we organized functionally around us we dramatically expanded our resource allocations for after Q&A we had a discussion about when it comes to development is it numbers that matter or is it quality that matters well the answer is they both do but we went from $3.4 billion program of record when I came as the ambassador to a $4.1 billion annual program of record and lastly in terms of innovations that we made in Afghanistan about the nature of the way that we organized our development programs there too I think we had some very significant advances so what was the outcome then over two year period of time with our military and our civilian efforts and our now including NATO including the international community very much including Australia of course in all of this the period was punctuated by security gains in areas where ever our militaries were to concentrate force we had a very successful and continue to have special operations campaign that made great strides in damaging Taliban command and control especially at the mid level there were political consequences that we paid for that campaign but in the main I think it was a major win we had a very significant enlargement and continue with the Afghan national security forces with some qualitative improvements moving beyond the military domain we had a significant we had presidential and parliamentary elections these were highlighted by fraud but ultimately they were accepted as legitimate by the most important audience now as the Afghan people without the resort to violence to try to contest the results of the election we've had some improvements as well in sub-national governance but continuing expansion really dramatic since 2002 of social services especially in the areas of healthcare and education a rise in illicit agricultural production unfortunately also a rise in illicit agricultural production and improvements in certain sectors of the economy additionally and this is very critical we had severely disrupted al-qaeda's capabilities existing in Pakistan not in Afghanistan through the methodical elimination of al-qaeda's leadership over the last several years we have to remember when we say that the role of Afghanistan for us for Australia for the international coalition when we talk about outcomes and gains against al-qaeda we have to remember that our bases for intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance assets our strike capabilities, our drones our special forces, our listening posts our human intelligence without Afghanistan and the ability then to base those operations and capabilities we would not be making the gains against al-qaeda in Pakistan that we are against this period, against the gains over this period of time of course there were disappointments and there's been setbacks as well this period of time is punctuated as well by tensions with President Karzai on our strategic approach it was also clear that greater differences were now beginning to emerge with the political elite about the pace and goals of state building and economic development the growth of massive corruption emblematic of this was the Kabul Bank crisis and sometimes very, let's call it an intense debates between our military and our civilian teams on the ground about resource allocation and prioritization with increasingly in an odd way and a positive way the Afghans more and more now entering those debates as well the fourth period is the period of time from 2011 about the time Jai and I leave Afghanistan until we project the end of 2014 and that's what we call the transition to Afghan League this is a formal process as you know it's been agreed to by NATO and the Afghan government significantly though endorsed by the United Nations and by the United Nations mission on the ground in Afghanistan and this transition process a formal structure process is one that now over the next three years should lead to the Afghan national security forces in the army and police having 100% responsibility for security throughout Afghanistan, albeit still with NATO support efforts are being made by the US Embassy on the ground and by our military forces as well to the best of themselves the best US military authorities of detention, responsibilities detention authorities inside of Afghanistan as well we're in the process of beginning to dismantle PRTs, provincial reconstruction teams as Australia participates in and war is gone problems President Karzai has talked about those provincial reconstruction teams and said that these provincial reconstruction teams can amount to shadow or parallel governments inside their own country and indeed he's correct so what's really transition in 2014 all about it's about Afghanistan the new government of Afghanistan going beyond the days your sovereignty that they enjoy to be back to the sovereignty you have 140,000 international troops in the country and they're on the frontline of combat operations if they are conducting detention operations if you have provincial reconstruction teams that Afghans will turn to before they will turn to their own government to try to capture resources that country does not enjoy sovereignty so transitions about de facto Afghan sovereignty to achieve our goals and their very ambitious goals now that our militaries are all shifting their weighted efforts to further training and equipping the Afghan national security forces perhaps on a more accelerated timeline our embassy and many of the embassies and other international organizations emphasis now is on sustainable economic development as opposed to support for stability operations focus programs on rule of law basic subnational governance and bolstering representative governance and then lastly a so-called diplomatic surge to complement the military and the civilian surges launched early this year on the United States part with the appointment of ambassador Mark Grossman a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and Mark's charge is a very important one a very difficult task what Mark is working on along with the United Nations and international partners is too bold efforts to try to get reconciliation talks political reconciliation talks going between the Afghan government and the Taliban knowing that those talks really have to be endorsed by Pakistan and then secondly efforts to try to create a regional solution or let's say a regional architecture that would find ways to support a lasting political settlement inside of Afghanistan what might US presidents look like in Afghanistan after transition I want to emphasize that sometimes especially with our Afghan friends very worried about giving them modern history about abandonment from the international community sometimes they talk about 2014 and transition as the point where the international community then evacuates from Afghanistan that is not at all the case in 2014 will be a transition as I said on the ground to a more capable Afghan government enjoying the back of the sovereignty but the presence at least on the US side but we don't know exactly what it would look like one of the advantages now of not being in the government I can speculate and I can speculate publicly what might our military presence look like in 2014 I don't know 10,000 maybe 20,000 troops several missions security assistance to the Afghan National Army and Police the completion of the task of preparing the Afghan Army and Police it's not going to end in 2014 there will be a very robust security assistance mission on the ground we'll have to have perhaps some limited capabilities to help the Afghan National Army and Police continue to fight against Afghan insurgency against anarcho-traffickers and so there may be some capabilities at the Afghan's lack of work, logistics, intelligence I could well see us having those capabilities on the ground and then finally, terrorism international terrorism in the region will not be defeated by 2014 and I would expect it likely that we the United States and maybe some of our allies will keep on the terrorist capability there but no to all of that all of this could be the case based upon decisions in Washington DC, NATO but also, importantly in 2014, an Afghan stand and as the Jura and Ipaco sovereignty so what do the Afghan people, what do the Afghan government want in 2014 that will also play a more important role perhaps than what any foreign country wants on the civilian side right now we have civilians at 80 different locations around Afghanistan they're in districts like Marjah and Hulman province they're in far places around the country generally operating side by side with military partners by the end of 2014 what I would expect is that we'll have no one at the district level no one at the provincial level those provincial reconstruction teams will be closed down we'll have a large, robust embassy at least large by similar standards a country like Afghanistan globally, population of 30 million an impoverished country but a very important friend and ally right now we have 1,300 civilians perhaps by the end of 2014 that might be 700, 800 civilians and beyond the embassy I would expect there'll probably be a full council of locations around the country that will be two of those council of locations that I should read development budget it was 4.1 billion dollars last year it's not going to be 4.1 billion dollars in 2014 will it be a billion dollars up to 2 billion dollars maybe in that range but having said that if you look then at that presence in 2014 in that set of missions that is not leading us to a point where we say transition is about the withdrawal of the international community from Afghanistan it's now a changed relationship with the sovereign government of Afghanistan so having described our past and current strategies I said it would be very brief in talking about challenges that we're facing as we move forward to 2014 beyond and let me work my way through those four challenges first of all Pakistan and the sanctuary that the Afghan Taliban still enjoy inside of Pakistan if that sanctuary is not effectively addressed I have to tell you based upon a lot of experience on the time in Afghanistan transition becomes much more problematic transition becomes much more expensive transition will come at the cost of much more blood of the United States our allies and the Afghan people second challenge the risk attendant with the phenomenal growth of the Afghan national security forces on his cost the cost of sustainment of the Afghan national security forces in the year 2014 we estimate to be about $78 billion a year the United States to give you a comparison the United States currently provides Israel with about $3 billion of security assistance a year now for the problem of getting $7 and $8 billion remember the government of Afghanistan by the end of 2014 might be able to generate revenue of about $2.5 billion so that represents a shortfall of anywhere doing 5.5 billion dollars and who is going to pay for that well hopefully our NATO allies hopefully NATO ISAF countries will continue to be generous but there's going to be still a very significant price tag and that gets into then the question of US sustainability with our own economic problems and our political challenges that we're facing institutional sustainability the Afghan national security forces the police and the army large organization complicated the Afghans have never in their history directed an organization of that size and complexity at this point in time that they have the managerial capabilities to do so we'll have a continuing to be smaller than it is today this will prove difficult for the Afghans third is the political reliability of the force and fourth is the potential for a national security state to begin to emerge in Afghanistan once again $2.5 billion at the most is what we would think the government of Afghanistan can generate in revenues by the year 2014 $8 billion of national security cost so you look at a country like Pakistan which has a robust national security community and forces and excuse state development in fact excuse state politics third the uncertain problems that are going to obtain from the economic downturn that Afghanistan will most assuredly experience as our military forces begin to pull back and as our level of development assistance comes down today we think that Afghanistan's spending from their government is about $1.6 billion but foreign spending that we've got injecting cash into the afghan economy somewhere between 10 and 12 billion dollars and that amount of money is going to start to decline over time with that you'll have an economic recession with an economic recession as we know from our own politics and our own countries we've got political consequences that come with economic recessions but in the case of Afghanistan what makes it different is that with graduate politics we have the danger of insecurity obtaining from that fourth and last the resilience and staying power of the central government and the political institutions that underpin it that serve as the basis for the legitimacy of the afghan government there's problems of massive corruption there's a question of political elites that are not willing to commit fully to the political institutions that are heavily supported and subsidized by the international community because they look ahead to 2014 they see the international military presence will decline the diplomatic presence on the ground will decline, development assistance will decline and so are they willing then at this critical juncture to try to invest further into their own political institutions or will they hedge. Now the problems that we face here in Afghanistan when I talk about this final topic of government and common ability rule of law is not unique to the afghan experience if I could quote from an individual named Townsend Hoops who served as a senior defense official in the United States President Johnson's administration during the Vietnam War which Australia was an ally of the United States in his 1969 book on the American war in Vietnam called the limits of intervention Townsend Hoops discussing the challenges of promoting better governance wrote pacification by the way using pacification talking about extending government into local areas pacification involved nothing less than political counter revolution in the interest of democracy especially for this reason it could not be planned and carried out by foreigners the dilemma facing the Johnson administration Hoops goes on to write was of course that the government of Vietnam lacked both organizational drive and reforming zeal and that its operatives did not commend themselves to the villagers in local areas as self evident authentic apostles of justice and democracy too often they were looked upon accurately as simply a different reform a different form of repression and exploitation but the United States could not escape identification with the government of Vietnam so from the perspective of interventionist nations and we all are the quality and reliability of the so called host nation partner does and has always mattered when trying to promote accessible counter insurgency. Let me conclude with saying that I think that over the past decade through the efforts of the United States of America through the efforts of Australia through the efforts of many countries on the ground and indeed not forget through the efforts of many many brave Afghan men and women that there has been a foundation that's been established in terms of security force capability and improvements in security in terms of governance of Afghanistan in terms of the economy of Afghanistan there is a foundation that's been built which gives us a possibility but I would not give a probability to have success with transition it's going to be more important with each year though that when we ask the question about how will we do with transition what challenges are there it's going to be increasingly important for the Afghan people and their leaders to stand up and provide the answers I'll end on a very poignant story that has to, takes me to Walter Reed Army Medical Center just recently closed in fact Jing and I were two of the last visitors to Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Walter Reed when we came out of Afghanistan because Walter Reed is where the soldiers who get so badly banged up in Afghanistan go for recovery great treatment center they're always a moving experience but whenever we'd be in Washington we'd go visit the soldiers so on this particular occasion I met a soldier I'll just say his first name Brian from Brooklyn, New York and Brian was like you and me except a little bit different because Brian had lost both of his legs above his knee Brian had lost his left arm above his elbow and thank God Brian was right handed and his right arm was still good and Brian was filled with a lot of enthusiasm when the United States ambassador to Afghanistan came to see him he cranked himself up in his bed and his mother and father there he was directing them and he was the studio producer pictures he wanted to have taken combed his hair before the pictures and so I asked Brian Brian tell me about what happened in the fight where you got banged up like this and whenever you talk to a soldier a sailor or an airman you always ask that question because it's going to take many years to come to grips with this and never tire of telling this story and especially if they lost comrades in that fight because there's always a part of them that feels they let their comrade down they survived and their comrade did not so we went through this with Brian and then I asked Brian question Brian how do you think we're doing where were you Brian Brian was in the Ardendal in Kandahar a district northwest of Kandahar city where two years ago the Taliban owned the Ardendal and we had brave US Army forces and Afghans going and cleared the Ardendal out but there was many killed in action and there were many casualties like Brian had Brian's answer I wish I had had a tape recorder on when Brian gave this answer to me like only a young private first class or a young USAID development worker or a young diplomat on the field can give you just in a very straight forward common sense way Brian's answer was how are we doing when I got into Afghanistan for this tour of duty in the Ardendal I saw that we had built schools for the Afghans we had built health clinics for the Afghans in the Ardendal we even got a road built and it's helping the farmers get their goods to market we got a great agricultural expert helping the Afghan farmers improve productivity the ambassador on top of that we're helping build an army in the Ardendal and their police force is getting better they paused and said ambassador there's not much more we can do in the Ardendal and I have to tell you I think it's getting time for us to leave and the Afghans are going to have to find their own destiny in the Ardendal and that's what I leave you with with Afghanistan we should be proud of what we've accomplished the Afghans are going to need to continue to get international support and help in certain areas a lot beyond 2014 but we should not be at all ashamed of what we've done in spite of our mistakes in spite of our setbacks we've done extraordinary things the Australians have done extraordinary things in Orr is gone but we've reached a point in time where now we need to step back and increasingly it's going to be for the Afghans to find their own destiny I'll stop here and take questions and that's it, my name is Raspal because we've had lunch today the commander of ISAF in US forces in Afghanistan General Allen has to adapt the campaign plan to cope with his diminishing combat power this question is within the context of surge recovery the original OPLAN was to focus on places like the Ardendal the regional command south and south-west and then to to regional command east do you think he's now got the resources with a fourth third of US forces leaving the theatre by this time next year to actually stabilize the south and to focus on the situation in regional command east that's really going a little pear shaped well most immediately when we talk about regional command east that's where of course the threat of the Akhani and the insurgents that sit in north Wazir stand federally administered tribal area come to a bearer so it does take me back to the question of Pakistan let me if I could let me take on your question though in two ways first of all about the transition itself I could elaborate a bit more on transition that when President Obama ordered the surge in 2009 the concerns that we all had about going forward with the surge is does the surge lead us to go in deeper into Afghanistan create more dependencies within Afghanistan get to a point where the Afghan national security forces are increasingly content with Australians and Americans at least with all of our capabilities then enabling them in more supporting roles than the other way around would we be on a pathway of well I'll come back and just use the word and then say so that was a concern that the that our president had and our president was also looking very frankly at severe economic problems for the United States of America right now on a comparative scale where our economic edge is eroding and so concern about the need to ensure at some point in time the United States and our allies reach the tipping point of commitments at the same time of course he was concerned that if we were to try to transition too quickly that the Afghans would then perhaps not commit to political institutions that we could destabilize Afghan stand as the Afghan people started to lose their confidence about enduring international support so when he announced that in 2009 when he announced the surge that we would start coming out in 2011 that was a commitment to the American people and President Obama has kept his commitments to the American people and to our allies and to our Afghan friends at the same time though already we were thinking about well what is the other bookend that needs to come into place we've got one bookend drawn in 2009 an incentive to the Afghans to start to move faster with picking up responsibilities but we also needed to put another bookend out there because the Afghans concerned that 2009 meant we were just beginning to evacuate and we were going to leave quickly that's what led eventually to 2014 transition so we have the two bookends in place that's important when we talk about those bookends because you're asking the question about General Allen, how can he manage they still got three years to manage the transition process once again remembering that even in 2014 we're going to have a robust security assistance mission on the ground the second point that I'd make though is about how far do U.S. Australian NATO forces want to go I remember in 2006 in the Konar province and talking to a young American captain of Konar and he had fought his way up a road and had occupied yet another Ford operating base, remember at that time we didn't have near as many troops on the ground and this young captain as he was displaying the situation around his Ford operating base about 25 years old commanding 100 Army soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division and he said you know General I know Talibans over in that next valley we cleared them out of this valley we pushed them back into the next valley and if I go into that next valley I think I can get there I'm going to take more casualties but don't retreat to the next valley and he said I'm thinking at some point in time we have to get to that limit where we turn to our Afghan colleagues and say you know what Talibans in that next valley and if you want to go after them you've got the lead so how do you make this into a real Afghan fight General Allen's challenge is now having to assume more risk I don't know if I'd call it military risk necessarily their own forces as much as risk with the Afghan National Army and police forces I had a long talk with President Hamid Karzai and he was very concerned that there was a growing dependency this is a year ago great concern about growing dependency of the Afghan Army and police on our forces and complaints that he was hearing that they were staying inside of their fort operating bases and unless there was a lot of US combat power made available to those Afghan commanders they didn't really want to salate for it I used the expression with President Karzai then said President Karzai hear what you're saying I think what you are getting at is that I could use an American expression what you want is the Afghan Army and police to go forward without the Americans and the Australians with them all the time and allow them occasionally to get a bloody nose but you don't want them to get a broken nose and he said that's exactly ambassador what I'm getting at right now and so a pretty good a pretty good metaphor about what General Allen has really got to be able to do with this juncture there's valleys and hills that look ten years into our presence in Afghanistan I don't think Australian soldiers should be going forward to clear out the Afghans increasingly got the capability to do it they're going to need help but it's going to be tough if you're an Afghan John, you want your Afghan partner to win just like your force is 100 to nothing you don't want it to be 99 to 1 you want it to be 100 to nothing but sustainable for the Afghan Army and the Afghan police they're going to have to get used to winning 60 to 40 and that's going to be hard for our military forces all Type A that want to just club the enemy continuously it's going to be hard for them to make some of those adaptations but they've got to do it General Allen I know as he took over and he came over and spent a long evening with Jeng and I over at the O residence I know that that's where General Allen is exactly going Thank you, my name is John Hart John I ask how do you think the extraordinary statement of the President Karzai might have done suddenly is likely to affect what the United States does in the period up to 2014 this is a statement this is a statement where he talked about that he would if a war between the United States and Pakistan joined Pakistan okay well look President Karzai he's got a job that nobody in this room wants to have well I wouldn't like to be waking up to his challenges every morning believe me now that I'm at Stanford University I'm not waking up to the challenges that he's facing President Karzai over the course of 10 years he said a lot of interesting things look I'll say two things here first of all I'm not in a position where I can talk to President Karzai about what did he mean to say what was the exact context but President Karzai he knows one thing that the United States 100 years from now is still going to be halfway around the world but 100 years from now Pakistan is going to be on Afghanistan's border so he has to have a formula where he's able to live with his neighbors and a balancing act is he's trying to figure out how to apply pressure to Pakistan him in a weakened position together with the international community in the United States to deal with the situation they exist in that country and at the same time trying to manage affairs so that things don't get into a real shooting match between the two countries so I think that's probably what was in the back of his mind not ill intent towards the United States of America not ill intent towards the Australian mission in Afghanistan to tell you that it was not a great timing to say such a thing as our Secretary of State was just in Pakistan delivering a fairly tough message and with President Karzai many times always knowing what he meant but the way sometimes he goes about and says it and I have to say frankly I think this is another instance of that please Ian Dillon and that's it with reference to 2014 how confident are you the Afghan government and Afghan people who want to continuing American NATO presence of the 20,000 class I I don't know I believe that if we do a straight line projection to 2014 that in the main the Afghan body politic would be supportive of a robust security assistance mission would be comfortable underpinned by what we would call a status of forces agreement formal agreement between two countries that outlines sets rules and parameters for the conduct and the rights of foreign military soldiers serving in a country predicated upon that kind of as the Americans would call it a SOFA agreement with Afghanistan accepted politically or underpinned politically by improvement of their parliament I think that the general consensus in Afghanistan would be that they still want that enduring military presence especially with the agreement if by that point in time the fighting had diminished to the point or the Afghan national security forces had increased capability to the point that our forces were not in frontline combat not as visible maybe as we say over the horizon ready to reinforce if necessary but I think back to what makes Afghan politics unique or at least distinctive Iraqi politics is where many in Iraq candidly would say they really wish the US would keep some kind of military presence not because of a threat from Iran but because of the threat of domestic instability serving more as referees and umpires I have to say at this point in time I think that kind of consensus view is still much more prevalent in Afghanistan could change but I believe that as we approach 2014 albeit presidential politics in play in 2014 the Afghans will face another presidential election and that will be part of the campaign narratives about what should be the foreign military presence in our country but I'm relatively confident that they'll want a enduring US and NATO military presence and for the US viewpoint we'd be hopeful we have a presence that it is a NATO ISAF presence not a singular US presence please I'm sorry man why don't you take it I'm I think you need the helping hand next question to a man thank you thank you thank you master I really enjoyed your talking you also foreshadowed my question and it goes to the presidential election in 2014 President Karzai has indicated he will not run in your talk you mentioned there are concerns about the stability of the central government and whether the Afghan people want to invest in that anymore to what level so I would really like your views on the situation and I forgot to tell you my name is Judy and Judy you're with I'm sorry you're a affiliation oh my affiliation I'm an American I'm an Australian and I'm here listening to your talk great that's wonderful come on Judy important question let me talk about the election President Karzai has said in several settings to include in the media in 2014 if he were to change his mind he also had to change the constitution of the state because the constitution of the state says five years each term and that's it and so it would enter in the 2014 several big things have got to fall into place for this 2014 election to work as always security security improved in some areas of the country there's other areas of the country frankly where security may not even be as good as it was during the presidential election of 2009 but in some important areas there's been improvements very importantly in posthumous areas in southern Afghanistan because in 2009-2009 the president of parliament was claiming with some degree of truth to it that they were disenfranchised by bad security secondly what has to fall into place I believe is there has to be a serious effort at electoral reform I could talk about electoral problems probably the most difficult one is what's called the single non-transferable vote problem for the parliament of Afghanistan that really would need to fall into place by 2015 but if you're going to start talking about serious electoral reform you can't wait a year before the presidential election by the year before the presidential election candidates will be emerging in the window for electoral reform some of what is needed for the presidential election desperately needed for parliamentary elections it will all be lost because you move from presidential election immediately to parliamentary election third what has to fall into place I believe is that Afghanistan needs national political movements right now it's a very fragmented scene politically I don't know if they're at the stage where you could have political parties political parties still ring unpleasant ways in the Afghan ears because they associate political parties with action with becoming a communism and with then 30 years of times of trouble but I think among the younger Afghans and some of the more reformist minded political leaders of Afghanistan they're starting to also recognize we have to have nationally based political movements and perhaps parties all national hopefully not just ethnic parties or sub regional parties but parties that are based on ideas that can start to pull in the best and the brightest and especially can start to pull in and politically mobilize the youth of Afghanistan but at this juncture I see no movement there President Karzai could do a great thing for his country he could stand up now and push for electoral reform and stand up like George Washington the first American president to say I don't believe in political parties but I won't oppose political parties and he could also start to try to figure out how to pick some of his supporters in the government some very talented people start to delegate more authorities to him some of the reformists and allow them to emerge in ways that they might be potent political forces in a positive way in 2014 Thank you Ambassador I'm Joan Bryant from the A&M College of Arts and Social Sciences I'd be interested to hear more about how you think the Taliban will be preparing for 2014 and if you could do a short SWAT analysis a bit similar to what you've done for the Allied Command and the Afghan government I mean what would the Taliban's strategies be acknowledging their strengths and weaknesses in the next three years Yeah, the Taliban have proven to be a very adaptive group militarily and politically I'll give you an example of political adaptation I was one day doing what I'd like to do whenever I had free time in Kabul not a lot of free time but driving from one location to another in a congested city I'd look at my watch they won't have got an hour I could fight my way back to the embassy or if we can go someplace exciting with my interpreter and just walk around so on this particular day my security team of course did not like this way of operating and so I said well let's go to this coffee shop this coffee shop is very popular in Kabul and let's go in and so I went in and sat down with a couple of businessmen from Ghazni is in south-eastern Afghanistan they're providing U.S. Polish military forces operating with the Afghan National Army but a troubled province the Taliban has made a lot of gains in Ghazni over the last several years juxtaposed to our gains in Helmand and Kandahar so I said well how is it that the Taliban businessmen from Ghazni how is that they continue to advance I mean they're odious every pole shows they're not popular and he said no ambassador it's not quite the case always Ghazni said what's the Taliban doing in Ghazni right now he said well they have a hotline and you have a problem with Taliban governance because they have shadow governance about 70% of the province you have a problem with governance we've got a hotline give us your problem and we'll go deal with it or not necessarily what we would agree a rule of law methods to deal with such problems they also he told me in Ghazni province I have a system where knowing that parents want even in remote rural areas parents want their boys and girls to get education they have a system in which if they find that a particular teacher in absent from class they knock at that teacher's door in the evening and say you've been missing classroom instruction we understand and we really think it advisable that you show up at school tomorrow or we'll be back tomorrow night and very very interesting that kind of socially responsible intimidation campaign is out there so has the Taliban changed their ideology and their first principles it's a great question we don't know the answer part of the reason we don't know the answers because we don't know how coherent the Taliban is as a movement but my sense is that at minimum they become tactically agile and I do think having talked to some of the retired Taliban in Kabul who were awfully good links to the active Taliban in Pakistan I'm not with them with increasing frequency my sense was that the Taliban had concluded they'd made huge mistakes in governance in the late 1990s and that they had overreached I think some of them believed that their relationship with al-Qaeda was a disaster I believe that some of them believed that there might be no military victory for them that the staying power of the international community was an extraordinary they looked at gains that the Afghan government and security forces are making and yet people say they can weight them out I'm not so certain of that but a lot of this is conjecture when you talk interestingly, you talk 10 years into this you think we have a great understanding of the Taliban mindset we don't but we see trends and indicators that would say perhaps they're changing their platform and could they then reach an agreement with the government of Afghanistan where the Afghans were satisfied enough and importantly, rights were protected women's rights, political rights human rights were protected could there be a way for the Afghans for the Taliban to come back and perhaps but then we could have an entirely different discussion again, about the role of Pakistan in all of this my own belief is that if Pakistan were to put pressure on the Afghan Taliban enjoying sanctuary in their country and say nothing more then you've got a choice you need to stay here now and stop fighting and stay in refugee camps or you can return to Afghanistan and you can fight if you want to there or you can rejoin your community and the government but you can't stay on our soil and fight against the government of Afghanistan and the political solution can be found to the problem but not until Thank you, one last question and a very short one with a short response What are they? My name is I want to be able to comment on the impact that Tunisian capabilities has had in assisting the state and nation building and what more should be done The work that the international military forces have done with the human terrain teams and the human terrain mapping has been most impressive the American military I think deserves good marks from establishing what is called an Afghan enhanced program several years ago of officers and non-commissioned officers and immersion in Farsi or Pashto languages interesting assignments in Afghanistan when they go in perhaps working in defense ministries or in the Ministry of the Interior interesting assignments where they're sent out into relatively remote areas working with our special operations forces so big gains that have been made but here also I will have to tell you that there's limits where you can go with the mapping of the so-called human terrain at the end we aren't Afghans we're not going to be able to develop a large cadre of really good linguists and experts on Afghanistan and so the best you can do get a pretty good appreciation of the country as best you can but be realistic and know where your limits are and don't try to go beyond those limits which becomes a hubris at that point you know it's interesting as a commander on my second tour of duty in Afghanistan we were talking about the need for us to get out there and understand more of Afghanistan's society we've got to understand those village politics we have to understand things better work harder at this because general what we have to do is win the Afghan partisan lines and my response to that is no we don't have to win the Afghan hearts and minds the government of Afghanistan needs to win their own people's hearts and minds they have to fight for their country and so how much do you invest in direct action and learning incredible language skills and doing this for direct intervention how much is enough how much do you work instead at trying to build the Afghan government to have the capability to deal directly with the problem with the enablement from us if I could then to make a three final points now speaking to great Australian friends here everywhere the first is that the cost of the war in Afghanistan for all of us has been high it's been high in terms of resource cost and it's been high in terms of lives lost I know from experience in Afghanistan twice as a commander and as the ambassador that the Australian people should feel nothing but pride for their soldiers for their diplomats and for their development specialists working in a remote place like Oregon province the second point is that I do believe that the diggers the diplomats that are serving in places like Oregon province right now that they are going to add much more to the strength and vibrancy of your country in the years ahead the first and the second world war for both of us, for the Australians and the Americans and the operational leaders in both of our countries and I believe that the conflict in Afghanistan will produce some of the same for those that are serving right now in that far off land and third and last and I speak entirely from the heart that I'll tell you as a former American soldier and a diplomat who's been shoulder to shoulder with a lot of allied counterparts that as an American I can think of no other person that I'd want on my right flank or on my left flank or preferably on both planks when showing gets tough than Australians. Thank you very much.