that you can joined us for a rollout on a report of afghanistan and moving forward. as we were thinking about the presidential transition we thought it was prudent to put together papers for the next president really recommending our way forward that would protect american interests in any number of topics and seemed to us that afghanistan a war that continues 16 years on that it was a critical area where a new administration was going to have to grapple with u.s. strategy objectives, and the way forward for the campaign. and so, we commissioned chris colenda, here to lead the development of the report. chris is now president and ceo of the colenda leadership group. he's also a former military officer four times in afghanistan, once commanding an airborne infantry task force in kunar, and has been written up in many case studies and books as a sort of model how counter insurgeoncy can be effective. i was fortunate to have him as my senior advisor on policy for afghanistan and pakistan when i was under secretary of defense for policy, so chris is a national treasure on afghanistan and so he was just the right person for us to commission to write this report and within weeks we hope that he will be a n new minuted phd. thank you for coming, also joining us is ambassador ron m newman. foreign service aufofficer sort with many kudos, from 2005-2007 and served as a provisional authority. so he has been at the nexus of poli policy, politics and also a well known author, he's a frequent commentator and just a tremendous resource i remember when i was under secretary any time i really wanted to understand i was having a hard time understanding something about afghanistan, he was one of the first people we would reach out to for experience and wisdom, so we are going to start the panel discuss giving chris a few minutes to summarize the report and recommendations and then turn to ambassador newman to go back and forth for discussion and then open it up for your questions and comments, so chris. >> thank you very much. thank you everybody for coming. i can't thank my sheichelle, i d up the pentagon or personnel people and said hey, i would really like to keep working on afghanistan in washington d.c. and they said well you can work on afghanistan but not in dc or work in dc but not on afghanistan, when michelle was getting on boredard i got to br her, and -- i would much rather be doing afghanistan stuff, okay, and i got a phone call saying hey, you're working for me now and we're going to do a new strategy review for afghanistan and pakistan and i would like you to help me out with that and so that was a tremendous experience and then being able to work with you the years following has just been absolutely delightful and i appreciate your leadership and support. i also want to thank the cns team for their support throughout this process in particular shawn brehmly, paul sharry, jerrel, an ron thanks for being here today. and we're also going to have ambassador jim cunningham here, but he had a last minute unfortunately could not make it. and also i want to thank the folks from the working group. they're listed in the report. but they provided a tremendous amount of support, challenged all of my ideas, and made this whole process better. so in terms of the report, i am a true believer in afghanistan. i'm a true believer in the people of afghanistan, and a true believer in the future of afghanistan. but i also know that we're not going to get there from here. and the situation has einvolved and developed such that without a significant change in strategy, we're going to continue to have problems in afghanistan that are just going to make the situation worse. overall, the situation in afghanistan is an unstable stalemate. and what i mean by that is it is a stalemate in the sense that neither side is likely to win outright, as long as they continue to enjoy external support. it is unstable, in the sense that the taliban continue making battlefield gains. and as long as they continue making battlefield gains, they are -- they're going to continue the military campaign. it is just that -- it is just that simple. in terms of the taliban, they are a sustainable insurgency. what i mean by sustainable insurgency is that they have got durable support inside afghanistan, so they can continue fielding -- fielding fighters, and supporters, and they have got external sanctuary in pakistan and donor support from the gulf. the afghan government, meanwhile, is unable to regain and retain taliban control in contested areas. these two situations and insurgency with sustainable support and host nation government unable to take territory from an insurgency means that the likelihood of a clear outright win for the government, statistically, is about zero. in fact, since the second world war, rand has done some interesting studies on this, and insurgency that has the sustainable support that i spoke about has been successful every single time. that doesn't mean that they overthrow the government, but in a negotiate -- they may overthrow the government, but in a negotiated outcome, they tend to do better than the government. convers conversely, a government that has been unable to essentially win the battle of legitimacy in insurgent controlled and contested areas has been unsuccessful every time. doesn't mean they were overthrown, they might be, or in a negotiated outcome, they have had to give more than they have gotten. and that is also the case, even with significant amounts of external support. so in terms of -- so that's what i mean by an unstable stalemate. and in terms of the likelihood of an outright government win, at this point, it is very unlikely. as is an outright taliban win. just to briefly talk about t talabani afghan government, the taliban is an insurgent group and who aims to eventually govern afghanistan. they will use a variety of means as an insurgency to gain control of a territory of people, and contest others. so they will certainly use military attacks, they will use shadow governance, they will use terrorist tactics, assassination, intimidation, propaganda, the whole range of what insurgencies generally use. they have sanctuary in pakistan not likely to go away anytime soon. they have made -- started to make inroads among nonpashtun groups which is significant for them. their ties with al qaeda were very, very difficult after september 11th and for many, many years beyond that. they have been improving recently. they fight, however, with islamic state khorasan, the islamic state affiliate that is in afghanistan. they're an internally fractious movement, not this monolith. they have many different factions. although those different factions are very loyal to the taliban. so -- or to the taliban's sort of identity. there often has been an aspiration to maybe fragment the taliban, and get them to defect, and i think that continues to be unlikely. their decision-making is actually very slow. they tend to run decisions kind of like a traditional shura or jurga where everybody has a veto. as long as there are people among them that believe the military campaign ought to continue, and since that's the status quo, that's what is probably going to produce. so there say huge status quo bias within that organization and it is going to take them some time before they -- and very different conditions than what they face now before they make a significant change in strategy. with respect to the afghan government, sadly under the karzai administration, they evolved into a predatory clsprp cleptocracy. that doesn't mean all government officials are that way, certainly not. a know a lot of government officials that are absolute patriots. but there are too many that are engaged in the cleptocracy and that makes negative incentives. the government of national unity has got its challenges as a divided government. very difficult time, again, on policy and actually moving it forward. both president afghani and abdullah abdullah want to reform the system, both recognize the system needs to be reformed, but their visions for reform are very different, which makes that reform process a real challenge. even more challenging than just those disagreements, the fact they're very powerful elites, warlords, who have so much invested in the cleptocracy that they will prevent -- they actively undermine any efforts to reform the system. and for many of them they're also willing to threaten violence, to prevent those sort of reforms, and so this makes this reform, political reform, a very high stakes process. unfortunately, too many of the army and police have been co-opted into the cleptocracy which undermines their ability to fight and win on the battlefield. and certainly there are a lot of commanders who are doing the right thing and when afghan forces are well led, they tend to fight very well. i fought alongside of them. and i have seen what happens when forces are well led. they tend to fight very, very well and very, very bravely. a lot of afghan forces are doing that. to many, however, are poorly led, or not led well enough, and have commanders and others who may be compromised in their incentives, and so this is creating problems on the battlefield, which are helping the taliban sustain. there is also no common u.s. afghan strategy for the war. which after 16 years, i find remarkable. but we have never had a common strategy for how we bring this sort of success to a conclusion. that has resulted in the united states and afghan partners, tending to move off in different directions. with respect to their region, afghanistan lives in a very tough neighborhood, as afghans will say. and they have got a lot of predatory neighbors. so pakistan is, of course, predatory neighbor, exhibit a, they provide sanctuary to the taliban. plenty of donors in the gulf provide funding to the taliban. their relationship with the taliban is not necessarily public puppet, master the puppet, but more of what some call co-op competition where the taliban are if left to their own devices will continue doing what pakistan wants them to do, which is destabilize afghanistan, but when they get out of line, pakistan will indeed crack down. the pakistanis do this in many ways out of fear that afghanistan will become a client state of india, and if it is a client state of india, then the indians and afghans will team up to essentially dismantle pakistan. and so the closer that afghanistan gets with india, the more nervous pakistan gets, the more nervous pakistan gets, the more they allow the insurgency to provide support to that, which then brings afghanistan and india even closer, and you get this sort of -- you get this very damaging, very destructive cycle in which for pakistan, if they prefer afghanistan to be a client state, they fear afghanistan will be india's client state, and so what they -- if they can't have one, and they want to prevent the other, they aim for an unstable afghanistan because in their logic an unstable afghanistan is not able to inflict the harm that they would expect a stable afghanistan could do. the united states, of course, has designated pakistan a major nonnato ally. and in aid and assistance, the united states gives $742.2 million per year to pakistan. with respect to india, they prefer that to kind of keep pakistan boxed in, they certainly don't want afghanistan to become a client state of india, they have many historic relations with afghans and afghan elites and they also recognize that there tends to be an inversion proportional -- an inverse relationship between violence in afghanistan and violence in kashmir, when violence in afghanistan goes up, violence in kashmir tends to go down and vice versa. that's not lost on india. iran and i'll stop at the third regional actor i'll address is iran. they have historic links with the hazara population in afghanistan, which are shia co-religionists and also view western afghanistan as part of their near abroad and they tend to look at afghanistan through the lens of their conflict with saudi arabia, fearing that if a pro pakistani group gets control of afghanistan, then that will be used as a lever by saudi arabia to undermine iran. all of these different regional conflicts are affecting the national conflict within afghanistan. for the united states, of course, we have had our own challenges. and we are certainly -- can be our own worst enemy at times. since the beginning of the war, we have tended to super empower various elites and warlords, which has been very damaging. and in fact, and at times when president karzai in the early years went to us asking us to back him, and working against the warlords, we tended to say no. and that's part of the reason why the cleptocracy evolved. we also had inflicted civilian casualties, which is very damaging to our relationships with afghanistan, to the legitimacy of the international mission, and to the patience of the afghan public. we often frustrated afghanistan with our policies. i was in harat in october, ambassador neumann was there too and i noticed two countries were like way the most unpopular from the perspective of the audience. the two most nonpopular countries were pakistan, of course, going away, the second most unpopular country for people there was the united states. and they view some of our policies for instance with the national unity government or policy with pakistan, those two in particular, as being damaging for them. and some afghans even actively wonder whether the united states really wants peace in afghanistan or if we're just sort of stirring the pot to justify a true presence. and that's not a healthy situation for the relationship. part of the reason why these problems have happened and continue to happen is we tend to operate in bureaucratic silos within afghanistan, so defense does its own thing. state tends to do its own thing, usaid does its own thing, the intelligence communities tend to do its own thing, and nobody is in charge of the full range of america's efforts on the ground. what happens is you get seams or gaps between the silos that people can exploit and then friction points in these silos where efforts in one silo can damage efforts in another silo. we have seen that repeat itself over the past 16 years. so bottom line is the taliban are gaining ground. the afghan government has not been able to regain the initiative. you've got predatory actors within the region that are feeding instability, that a lack of vision and strategy for a peace process, the reconciliation efforts that we worked on in 2011 to 2013 not only failed, but were very damaging in the eyes of many afghans. the united states policy have been way too sluggish and bureaucratic. so what do we do with all of that? we looked at three options. option a, we called, withdrawal. keep funding afghanistan and then try to manage the risks of international terrorist groups coming back to afghanistan. option b, an open ended commitment. we keep 8400 troops there and current levels of funding and do it forever. essentially as jim cunningham put it, put the current approach on auto pilot. and that includes managing the policy episodically from the white house and from washington, d.c. and option three is what we called focused engagement. is there a way to -- is there a way to do something different besides open ended commitment or simply leave? and so this is what we called focused engagement. a very simple and realistic strategy. and it is based on a fact that a negotiated outcome is probably the most realistic way to gain a favorable and durable result in this war. so we have got to make the -- we have got to figure out how to make the conflict right for negotiations, in which the afghan government has the advantage. and then you need to be building the foundations of a peace process, and not a peace deal, where people get around the table and try to hammer out a deal in three days, but a process that will probably take 10 to 15 years or longer to unfold. afghanistan has been at war for nearly 40 years now, there is a lot of -- a lot of tensions and issues wrapped up in whatever peace process might unfold. and so strategic patients is going to be absolutely essential for this. so we laid out three objectives for how we set the conditions to bring a negotiated outcome about, in which the afghan government has the advantage, and respects the sacrifices and service of both afghan civilians and soldiers as well as americans. so we laid out three objectives. first, we have to stabilize the battlefield. and that means that we need to stabilize our troop presence, and essentially say that we're going to be there at this level or enhanced level as long as the afghan government wants us. so get rid of the withdrawal timelines, we're going to stay there as long as the afghan government and people want us to be there. at the same time, we have got to get develop a u.s./afghanistan strategy for how we're going to bring this war to a successful conclusion, get everybody on the same sheet of music and got to apply -- do much better at applying conditionality to our aid. and assistance. i think we can get more of that in the question and answer. second objective, promoting afghan sovereignty while reducing destabilizing regional competition. so we have been trying for a long time to essentially finesse everybody's interest, to try to find the sweet spot where the interests of all afghans and as well as all the region, pakistan, india, iran, et cetera, can all be met. we have come to the conclusion that that sweet spot probably just doesn't exist. so a way around that is afghanistan essentially declares themselves to be a neutral power, backed by the united states, and regional actors make declarations of noninterference and then you've got to have a process that adjudicates and manages that. if you can't find a way to manage the so-called great game, if you will, and in a productive way, then this is perhaps an alternative to just remove the great game altogether. and then the third objective is we have got to begin the process of building the foundations for a peace process, that, of course, may take 10 to 15 years or longer to unfold, and probably going to require a third party facilitator to begin to construct this process, to build the foundations. and these processes are going to have to occur at local levels, at national level, and at international or regional levels because those are the dimensions of the conflict. and then finally, we need to stop the united states, stop operating by bureaucratic silo, and actually put somebody in charge in kabul of the full range of the united states' efforts in afghanistan, and we'll talk more about that in the q&a as well. the report also determines or lays out what we expect might be reactions to the strategy by other actors. and the united states bureaucracy. and then we also lay out some identify some risks and ways to manage them. and i believe that through a strategy like this, that you can actually bring the war to a favorable and durable conclusion, that respects the service and sacrifices of afghans and americans alike. and can set the stage for that kind of very bright future that i think afghanistan and the afghan people aspire to and want to achieve. >> great. thank you. so ambassador neumann, you have read and written and lived more about afghanistan than most of us in this room. this is a new report. new recommendations on a new strategy, what were the main takeaw takeaways, the thing you thought were most salient in this work? >> thanks, michele, thank you for having me here. i did get to -- i wouldn't say consult, more like kibbutzing, but i did have a chance to make a few interventions. i think any washington densen approaches the report with henry kissinger's quip in mind that state department reports always had three recommendations, nuclear war, surrender, and whatever it was that the bureaucracy wanted you to choose. i think this is a little better than that, actually. i think this report does some things which are really important. first of all, it deals with the question of winning. that's been a major problem because i think we tend to as americans tend to be focused on winning in the conventional war since you have a surrender ceremony and everybody goes home. insurgency doesn't provide that sort of end. but if that's your definition of winning, then you choose between an impossible vision for success, or essentially policy because you can never have a strategy for successfully engaging. that's a pretty unsatisfactory place to be. so when this report deals with what is winning for the united states, and talks about it in terms of the prevention of strikes against the united states, but then what that has to require, that is not just playing with semantics, not redefining hangman as a suspension expert, but it is in fact looking very seriously at the question. now, one can argue whether or not the definition is right, but i think it is important to recognize, first of all, need for that, and then second, credible definition. in doing that, it also allows one to focus on what is really important to us. why we went to afghanistan in the first place, why 26 nato nations have remained with us all these years. and at a great many others besides there are reasons for that. we tend to get frustrated. we have a lot of reasons to be frustrated. we do a lot of things wrong. but we have some serious issues in afghanistan, we need -- if we can have it, we need a policy that addresses them, not one that just says i'm tired, i want to go home. that's important in this report. it addresses those -- it fits into the context of winning. then, the report does something which is, i think, not new, but is important and it develops it in a different way. and this is the need for changes within the afghan government, and in terms of the quality of its governance and honesty. but it also recognizes this is going to be a long-term proposition. this just isn't going to happen fast. and we have been over the years fascinated by somehow getting this to happen on our timetable. and because we change people all the time, we manage to always have new ideas about this, i used to refer to this as the -- when people change the annual passage of the good idea fairy. we would be afflicted with all sorts of new bright notions, most of which didn't work very well and i became -- i felt like very old, gray bureaucrat, telling people, we tried that one. we do that. so this -- there is a level of common sense rationality about this. some people may not accept that conclusion. you are to look at the other options. you can't have -- finally, the report does something which i think is quite important. in which is new, in terms of afghanistan, that is the talk about running the policy in kabul. both running it in kabul and running it with a single person overall, the larger idea of a single person overall is one i actually addressed also in an article a couple of years ago with admirals blair and fulsome, i don't think it will ever happen, but the idea you could get to a view of civilian control with two four stars and diplomat was kind of unique. in any event, there are serious reasons why you need this. afghanistan has suffered our policies in afghanistan have suffered repeatedly from what we used to as you remember call the 6,000 mile screwdriver. the constant desire of washington to micromanage policy, and given the silos that chris talked about, that often meant a cacophony of voices with different messages which on one hand was confusing to the afghans and on the other hand was a constant temptation to them to play on the seams in our different organizations to their own benefit. that just doesn't work. it doesn't stop us from doing it repeatedly. it is almost the american way of war. but it is a bad idea. this point that the report makes about the need to run policy in washington, away from washington, kabul, under broad guidance from washington, it is really important and let me just wind up, i want to leave plenty of time for questions, let me try to explain why it is important with one anecdote. because washington is always full of ideas about how to do things, do this, or do that, in fact, this is the staple of conversation of the washington intelligencia, foreign policy intelligencia, talking to itself about how to run things, unencumbered by having to deal with foreigners. unfortunately, at some point, you have to deal with foreign policy with foreigners. and we don't do that so well from washington. and so to just illustrate this point, at one point there was a technical issue but an important one and three ministries couldn't get together, it was an energy issue, we were chasing around and around because each ministry would direct us to the other ministries for being responsible for this issue. and finally, i wanted to perform a single counsel which probably wouldn't produce an answer, but since it had to fail collectively, it would then set the ground for me to go to president karzai with different issues. and they obviously didn't want to do that because that would stop them from passing the buck. and so at one point i simply stopped $10 million worth of diesel fuel to kabul, i just cut it off. and i have a way of explaining this. i was putting pressure on -- wasn't working very well. and it took a little while and eventually i discovered that the administrator of water and power thought that actually i was doing this to undercut him to force his removal. well, if the purpose was forcing his removal, then he had no reason to even address the policy issue that i was trying to press him on. so he completely misunderstood my message, despite the fact that we delivered it. he didn't believe what we were saying. so it was only when i first understood this, then more through luck than skill, found somebody who had his confidence, but an understanding of the technical issue, that we could use this go between to create a solution, very afghan way of doing things, not about sitting down with two people and hashing out your differences it having a no face confrontation through intermediary and eventually worked it out and we got a solution, okay for him, okay for me, and then he and i had our typical reconciliation dinner where we never talked about the subject of dispute because that's the way you do it in afghanistan. that would be a face issue. so i tell you the story because that is not a process you can run from washington. you can decide if they don't do x, we're going to cut off y. you could no more operate that policy, understand its effects, tailor the reactions than you could fly out the window. that, in 15 years or 16 years, has not stopped us from trying repeatedly. that's why i find that this idea, although it is almost heretical in washington, of devolving a great deal of authority to the field, while it is from one sense not policy, but operational, it is actually very important idea. let me stop -- >> thank you. so, chris, i want to go back to, you know, your first recommendation which is the importance of stabilizing the battlefield to start setting the conditions for a more productive set of negotiations. and you talk about a different kind of stalemate, and a stalemate that would convince the taliban that they could no longer win on the ground, but that it was in their interests to try to negotiate for their objectives at the negotiating table. so, you know, what in your view, you know, would convince the taliban that it was time to at least start taking steps towards a peace process, because clearly we haven't set the conditions successfully to date. >> well, i think the bottom line is when the cost of trying to make further gains far outweighs the potential benefits is -- when it just becomes too painful to try to make future gains is when that decision-making process will begin to germinate within the taliban, that maybe the military campaign is just too costly anymore. we haven't gotten to that point yet, part of the reason why is this gradual draw down of international forces. so with that gradual drawdown, the forces have been able to say, we know the pain level is going to reduce every year. so if we just hang on another year, things will be a little bit better. and they also have been able to calculate that as international forces go down, the likelihood that the taliban can get -- can improve their battlefield gains is going to go up. that is one of the problems, frankly that undermined the effort to transition the fight successfully as well as the reconciliation effort was the fact that we were trying to do all of these things in a position of declining leverage. and that's a very bad situation to be bargaining in. so in terms of stabilizing the battlefield, stopping the drawdown and announcing that, look, we're going to be there as long as the afghan government wants us and i think probably an enhanced level, so general nicholson said he needs a few thousand more troops to do advising at one level lower than what he is now, at the brigade level, absolutely right, and we ought to give that to him. and we ought to stabilize troop levels, stabilize funding, air support, the whole nine yards. and that will at least get us to the point where the taliban will reach a high water mark and not going to be able to get any more gains. now, with the things like conditionality and political sector reform, what we might be able to do over time is the afghan government and security forces improve to the point at which they are able to regain some battlefield initiative, to gain and then retain areas under taliban control. and i think if the afghan government can do that, first of all, stabilize the battlefield and then begin to chip away at some areas under taliban control, then you have a situation in which the afghan government is in a -- a position of advantage in the negotiations. and i think that's what we need to try to achieve. >> so the report also puts a big emphasis on reforms within the afghan government, strengthening its effectiveness, its ability to deliver, services, and so forth, to the afghan people, regaining its legitimacy and more contested areas, you know. you've spent years working with various efforts to reform the afghan government. are there particular incentives, conditions -- use of conditionality, that you think you the u.s. and international community needs to use to try to, you know, support or accelerate that reform process going forward? >> there are. i think you have to start from two realizations that have been hard for us. one is the major driver of corruption is individual profit and survival. most of our conditionality is directed at putting pressure on or diminishing the state when we're not happy. there is a mismatch between where we have leverage, which is on the state, with our aid program, size of our military budget, and the driver of corruption which is individual gain for -- open for short-term survival on a quick basis. that doesn't mean you can't do anything about it. second thing is we have tended to look at corruption across the board as a moral and juridical issue. i think that's the next phase, a phase beyond where we have to be. it is very difficult for us to operationalize this, is essentially the level of -- to moderate the level of corruption so that you have efficiency in performance, what do i mean? we had cities in this country, quite frankly, for 100 years, putting it in the past tense, i hope, where city governments were pretty corrupt. we got their piece. but the bridges they built stayed up. we drive on them today. the buildings they put up stayed up. that was still a corrupt system. but it worked and it delivered to the people. and frankly, that's the next phase that afghanistan needs to get to. where it has much higher levels of efficiency and performance. not purity. now, this is going to be really hard. if it is going to be hard, it means we have to have a limited focus. and that would be on the security ministers where performance is critical, to these things, the kinds of things chris is talking about, the balance. and some places in the justice ministry. we can't take it all on. and therefore, i think, if we press on some of those things, we can, i think we have to press on the ministerial levels. and we have to press for much more accountability. you have commanders that have completely let their units go to hell and been corrupted, if sold weapons, we need to insist that some of those people go to jail, personally i would like to see them put up against the wall, but probably jail is the appropriate thing. but if the afghan government cannot find the political will and support to truly discipline the most egregious performers, then we're at the point that chris talks about in the report, where we have to start relooking at some of our basic assumptions. because then we're just mowing the grass, then we're substituting american willpower for afghan. american willpower can support afghan, it can never replace it. >> yeah -- >> can i -- >> i was going to give you an opportunity to build on this. there is a certain tension between conditionality, and your communication, we're with you, this is an enduring commitment, we're not going to abandon you, that reassurance, there is a certain tension there. to be honest, we have tried various forms of conditionality in the past with afghanistan, with pakistan, hasn't worked so well. so help me understand what -- are there examples where it has worked, are there particular cases where you could describe how it would work and get a different result? >> so, i think to answer that question, it's important that you understand the nature of the corruption that's in afghanistan. so corruption is like a disease and there are different kinds of disease, all right? one of the problems with using the term corruption is it's this big banner that can mean anything from sort of low level shakedowns at check points all the way to a kleptocratic form of government. and pefrg everything in between. so making a distinction is very important. low level is illegal and not tolerated by the system is actually very easy to deal with. corruption by sort of individuals that when the larger context of the system is corruption is not tolerable, you can eventually put enough pressure on those individuals and deal with the problem. when it's in a sector like the ministry, that's an even more aggressive form of the disease. it could be treatable if you isolate it. if you're a kleptocracy. that's fatal. that means it is rittled throughout the entire system. the difference between patronage is that money flows from the top down and loyalty goes up. and in a kleptocracy, goes up to power brokers in kabul and often to offshore banks. at one point, $5 billion a year and license what you need to do to make current profit is what flows down, so some of the reports i've gotten from afghan officials is police chiefs for very lucrative tier one provinces can go for several million dollars. up to $3 billion was one recent one. a border police commander, generally, $50,000 or so. one person who works in the ministry of interior told me that there's actually a cue to become chief of police and helmet and after $500,000, you'll be the chief of police for a certain period of time with the expectation you'll turn a million dollar profit. not everybody plays this game, but too many of them do. this also happens with generals for about $100,000 or so. when everybody is playing this game, your number one incentive or enough people are playing this game, your number one incentive is not good governance and not winning the war. it's feeding the system to turn the profit because you're expected to move money up and that's also a way you take care of your family. >> so how would you apply additionality to this situation? >> let me give you two specifics. one is the business of promoting people who fight and whose units are efficient. that is something where we have enough insight to know whether it's happening or not happening. it's going to be much harder to do than to say but where we have the mechanisms and advisory to put continuing levels of pressure. second thing is we have to pick the egregious targets and frankly, there has to be a measure of discussion. but then, we can put very specific pressure on individuals or on two. we can even take the rap sometimes. but that's more art than science. that isn't going to be described in a policy. that's going to work out the ground. >> i think he's exactly right. there's been discussions in kabul with the afghan government and resolute support that the military command about essentially having review boards to assess performance of provincial governors or court commanders and for those that are not, you know, performing, then that review board would make some sort of determination that would be binding. so there's been discussion about that. things like that, i think, would be very, very helpful. because rod is exactly right. you can't just dismantle it overnight. there are way too many people too powerfully invested. the first vice president is resisting turning over some for questioning for, you know, for an alleged abusive act against another afghan. until there's a system in place to review performance, any international community actually willing to suspend or cut off funding when lines get crossed. for instance, a corruption perception index every year. afghanistan has been in the top three from 2008, i believe, until -- >> not good. >> until 2016. i think yemen and libya have actually gotten worse, but that's an index we can use but i think both when corruption is not getting better, when a performance on the index is not getting better, then there's penalties. when performance exceeds expectation, i think there's a bonus. so i think we've got to do some, i think we've got to do some things to make conditionality very, to depersonalize it and objective as possible and i think ron's also exactly right that we have to have a sense of who are the spoilers and blockers and we have got to work together with the afghan government in ways that help reduce the spoiling and blocking activity. >> so i'm going to ask one more question. the peace process. you described a process that is somewhat different than the normal thing. we think of a peace process, people coming to a negotiating table, sitting down, coming up with a final deal. what you're describing here is a gradual process that starts with confidence building measures and dpradly moves towards a final negotiation but over a number of years. love to hear your sense of 10 to 15 years. that's a discouraging number in this conflict. is that based on case studies and experience? where did that come from and secondly, how does this process get started? is it completely sequential or first have to change the battlefield conditions or things we can start doing now to lay the conditions? how do you see this? >> so, yes. i'm making a distinction between a peace deal which is get a bunch of elites around a table and try to make a peace agreement and a peace process that's very gradual, very deliberate that starts with very basic, very broad confidence-building measures and over time, those confidence building measures can become more concrete, can become more comprehensive to the point of which you're then able to begin making agreements about battlefield activities. when you look at the peace process in northern ireland, for instance, rather than being a gradual and deliberate process, that once it began, gaining some traction, took about a decade or more. columbia in the peace process, also had been very gradual, very deliberate and the reason why i think this is really important is, look, in 1992 in the accords after the afghan communist government fell, the seven parties tried to essentially create a peace deal that carved up the afghan government. amongst them. and that began a civil war. and it sort of made things worse. so when the united states is working on in 2013 opening this taliban office and none of the preparatory work was made in afghanistan and building support for the idea of a taliban office and a peace process. the upbeat outrage in afghanistan was significant in june of 2013 and i think, i hope the united states learns a lesson from that and stops rushing to take a very deliberate action. and there is a lot of polarization in afghanistan, naturally, between, you know, the afghan government and the taliban and various groups in between. frankly, i don't see a peace deal that is, first of all, sustainable. and second of all, if we tried, it would probably make the conflict worse. >> to underscore two points. one, peace deal has to be afghan led, not american. every time we look like we're urgent for peace, what we set up is a process where taliban try to see if they can get more from us than the afghans. that's a loser's game. so it has to be afghan led and ghani wants to do it anyway but our support has to be support for her so just bite your fingers, set up. and then second to recognize that fighting and negotiating our parallel tracks. americans get really hung up with this idea that these are alternatives. they are not alternatives. you do them side by side and the clearest formulation of that i heard was from the late israeli prime minister. was asked once, how can you negotiate with these terrorists? and his answer was, i have to negotiate as though there were no terrorism and i have to fight terrorism as though there were no negotiations. and in other words, you don't let yourself be put into a position where you weaken your fighting because you're having negotiations, even though they haven't gone anywhere, nor do you get yourself into a position where you can't negotiate because you haven't won the war yet. you have to pursue both in parallel and your paper makes a really important point we didn't discuss which is the need for a third party voice to work between people because it's hard enough to do this thing at all but hardest enough with the parties at the table because any idea you put forth, it appears to be a potential concession. and you have a third party who works back and forth between parties, then they can try out ideas and you can, whatever party you are, americans, afghans, taliban, you can give an answer but it's not negotiated or one you're responsible for committing to at a table. and that is a hugely necessary process, probably required. a lot of times, just to talk about what you're going to talk about before you actually get to talking about negotiations. >> we're going to open it up for questions. when i call on you, tell us who you are and actually ask us a question. do we have mikes? okay, this gentleman right here. >> doug brooks at the afghan chamber of commerce. if you're going to bolster the afghan military and police, we're talking more engagement, possibly mentors. again, with them, do we have any buy-in from, say, nato allies? would they be willing to do that sort of thing? a long-term process to take casualties at a fairly significant rate, again, is this sustainable? >> it's a great question. and i don't know to what extent those conversations have developed with nato partners. certainly different nato partners come with different caveats and different restrictions on what their military forces can do and so this could affect their ability to provide the sort of up close and personal advising that we're talking about. so i think this is a process that needs to. >> but it doesn't necessarily mean a lot of casualties because if i understand the report correctly and what general nicholson is talking about, broadening the advisory presence is first of all, covering each core. right now, we don't cover every core and it's periodically or occasionally depending on need at the brigade level. this is not the vietnam advisor at the company level or battalion level in the field and what your understanding is of working and not working, it does not seem to me that that level of rising would lead particularly to much in the way of casualties. >> yes. right here. >> marvin from the lee middle east institute. chris, given the description, which i think is right on here about what is the lay of the land, i'm surprised you didn't come up with a fourth option. which uses some of the same ingredients that certainly your third one did. i find difficult about the third, first of all, it goes on for a long time. and we have to seriously ask the question, given the trajectory of things now, whether afghanistan has 10 or 15 years. the fourth option that i have in mind is not predicated on there being eventually sitting down around the table and coming to some kind of resolution here. but taking what you said here about building confidence, both in the military, presumably, the economic system has to be able to lay out there the incentives of people to want to identify, but also, the political reconciliation among the political types. why can't we see our position there then as essential for all the reasons you've said but essentially, it's our buying time but our time, certainly not as long a stretch as you put out here, but 3, 5, 7 years. let me just come to my point, if i can. >> that would be great. >> and that is, the process is not one of a grand bargain, even if it's down the road. but of reintegration rather than reconciliation with the taliban. it's one in which what we do by making gains here is to begin this process of peeling off commanders and that in the end, it marginalizes the hardcore and for that reason, we get the best of all outcomes. >> sure. and there's actually a little bit of that in the paper, but the bottom line is that there's been an aspiration to encourage taliban leaders to defect for a very, very long period of time. and today, there is one. defected from the taliban after being shot a number of times in i think 2010 or so. so it's not realistic and although they're factious in the taliban and there's emerging research on this from bill farrell, actually, where although the taliban leaders, sort of mid level leaders are not satisfied with their leadership, their senior leadership, they're not willing to defect. the taliban brand name to them is really important so the defect model hasn't worked. i think what the process where you essentially look at this in three major layers, the local level, absolutely important which gets us some of the dealing with the local grievances and may be getting people off the battlefield that way but you've also got to have a process that deals at the national and international level and if we announce a timeline, if we're going to do this another 5 to 7 years and then we're out, once you announce a timeline, you lose your leverage. a contest of wills, any war is, that matters. that's why we took this approach. >> in the back with the blue shirt. >> brian at usa. it was mentioned before the tension between the long open ended commitment and the conditionality and, you know, when you have conditionality, you need to have a real threat on the table. willing to take something away and be willing to follow through on that, and so what very specific things should we be willing to take away that doesn't undermine that first overall commitment to long-term support? >> the idea that we will lay out some grand vision of what we will take away is now a conspicuous failure. it's what we have tried repeatedly in brussels and tokyo in various agreements. and we ended up framing it generally and then we won't carry through. it's very practical. i understand it. but it doesn't work. it's why i think you need a process which is, because it doesn't work, it's not credible. so we end up with a need for a bigger threat because we didn't perform on the last one and that's less manage. so what i would like to see is far less sketching out what you're going to take away. far more leaving it up to people in kabul to find ways of exacting pain on an individual basis and a targeted basis. that's much more art than science but i really think, you have to hurt individuals, not systems. most of what we want to take away hurts systems and leaves untouched the individuals and their motivation for corruption. as attractive as the theory is, and it's got to be actually less specific but less framed and more specific in its application. we can do that, including one thing i'd like to see with a certain number of people is getting the irs to go after those who have significant american holdings. i would just love to see occasion afghan politicians finding their vacation in the u.s. has been interrupted by a soldier in court. we could do that. we have some of these tactics we're not using but that's targeting individual and you have to select things on a political basis, not trying to frame everything in broad systemic terms. very difficult for us. it's not the way we like to operate. i think it's the only way that will work. >> there's a good article on international security. a couple, maybe one issue ago o. >> maybe one issue ago on how the united states used conditionality effectively in el salvador and it gets to issue issues that we're discussing. >> tom? >>s that we're discussing. >> tom? >> tom bowman with npr. thanks for doing this. the taliban gained 15% more territory over the year according to nicholson. this is something people have been complaining about for years going back it mito mike mullan. there is a bumper crop of poppy that funds the taliban and corruption. how do you deal with all three? nicholson wants a few thousand more trainers at brigade level. can you push back the taliban with brigade level and with the hikanis in particular, is it time to really start hammering the hikani network over the border in pakistan? >> i like that. >> because people have been talking about it, if i add dollar for every time someone said that, i could retire right now. then the poppy crop, i was there in the spring and nothing has been done for years. what do you do about the poppy? eradicate it like older days or buy it up and sell it as medical morphine and help the economy? >> yeah, thomas those are great questions. >> actually, i would love to answer. but that's your report. you go ahead. >> i'll jump on the pakistan piece. >> okay, you go with pakistan and i'll go for a couple of others. >> so, in an ideal world, the united states would be able to put enough pressure on pakistan that they would turn kwens tagae afghan taliban and insurgence would be over. that's been a demand from afghanistan that they do that and it is a mystery as to why we don't do that. we give them $72 billion a year in aid and assistance which enables them to use other money to support the taliban who is conducting attacks that are killing american soldiers, and afghan soldiers and civilians. it is very frustrating. but as mentioned, we've got to figure out, we've got to make a distinction between what is most desirable and what is most realistic. even when pakistan was under very aggressive, very comprehensive u.s.-led sanction nets 1990s because of the nuclear program, they were supporting insurgency and running their full program. now, that's under sanctions. we can do that again and money and sanctuary will still make their way to the taliban. so the idea, the expectation, that if the united states can put enough pressure on pakistan, to go to war with the afghan taliban, it is just not realistic. and that's why in this report, i say, look, you're most likely favorable and durable outcome will come through a piece process. and we're probably not going to change sanctuary. we won't change the poppy episode. but we can at least stabilize the battlefield so at some point the taliban the run against a high-water mark and when military operations just simply get too painful, because they can't take any more territory, is when you see them becoming more amenable to negotiations. >> i would like those who support sanctuaries to pay a high higher price for that support. without making it a hundred percent do or do. but we will get there. you talk about ascending pressures and squeeze answers i think that's appropriate. including a certain amount of segregation. and you talk about can we get there on brigade advice. yes, because certain things are interrelated. if afghans will promote those who fight, and the leaders that count, you can do a great deal. you are doing great with the commandos right now. problem is you are using them up. when you look at places where they are losing ground, it is as much deplorable leadership in those place taesz thos those places as it is with my particular area with lack of equipmen equipment. they have talked about places where we drew out heavy battle and there were a few machine gun bullets in the walls. and no evidence that anything happened. these suckers just left. you can turn that around with leadership. if they also take the political will to bat. if the two come together it can deliver quite a bit. and you see then in two of first and two of third core in the east. they aren't losing ground particularly. so command makes a difference. >> that's very interesting. you've got to put them together. and this would not be a popular policy view. i don't believe there is anything can you do short term about poppy. neither strategy will work. they have massive problems. i would be happy if you want it talk about them. so you have places where people have voluntarily given it up. they were giving it up in central helmet where they had the right mix of land and water. those are policies you have to focus on. it will be horrible politically because they won't be short term results and people will eat you alive for the lack of it. but it is the only realism there is. yes, here in the red shirt. >> hi, i'm from afghan and used to work with the afghan government. mr. kolenda, thank you for the comprehensive report and speech on afghanistan. i would like to raise a couple of issues here. and as you mentioned, the corruption is a big problem in afghanistan and in the way it creates more insurgency and more resilience in afghan society where you have the ruler afghan community, the former warlords, former mujahedeen, and then they see the massive policies and armored vehicles run around cities and provinces and all they see themselves trapped in an unfair way of society where they are targeted by afghan force, sometimes the united states when there are raids and that ultimately create resilience, as you say that united states has become the second most unpopular country, afghanistan. >> so the question? >> so my question is that if united states is going to continue to engage with afghanistan, particularly with the national government and have you corruption officials being appointed all over the country and difference province answers government jobs are sold out from hundreds of thousands of dollars, how is that going to bring in a last ending peace and how is that going to, eventually united states money will fund insurgency one way or another. but how do you see particularly, this administration, to tackle corruption with national unity government given you have second generation in government offices? so it is a very complex issue. but it is one of the core of the problems in afghanistan. >> absolutely right. both ron and i have mentioned you have to understand who the spoilers and blockers are. and we've got to coordinate with the very senior members of the afghan government for actions to address that kind of activity. because you're right, if people pay no penalties then the actions continue. i think putting the authority, putting the military in kabul, giving them much more authority over the full range of u.s. activities on the ground, will enable them to be much more agile in recognizing and we also talk and report about how we need a much more robust monitoring capability. so we can recognize when these things are happening. and coordinate with the president and the chief executive on how to address these problems. >> yes, right here. >> hi, there. [ inaudible ] from my perspective, we've add new season of afghan political will over the last couple of years. i was wondering if either one or both of you would talk about your confidence or lack of in the reform priorities. when you mention brussels, i would love for you to touch on that a little bit. i know is outside the secure ate little bit. thank you. >> sort of a yes, but. the president is putting in place long-range reforms which are important. and a few of them are delivering results. chris mentioned we were both out there in october and we were both running around kabul, sort of chris-crossing. i was surprised that people said tax collection had gotten more honest. they were in the finance committee negotiating but not for bribes. i had a banker tell me that bank regulation was much more honest. on the other hand it was so tightly controlled it was very difficult fproduce loans for small business. but those are normal problems for developing countries and i would be frightfully mournful if we ahad a few more of that kind. some of these are happening but they are are small. they won't snowball. and i think ghani's determination is real, it's not perfect. and i think there are places where he at least terates things he shouldn't. i don't think it is in miss interest, his financial interest, but it is in his political interest. for the search for purity in afghanistan is probably shouldn't that you shouldn't undertake. i think with abdullah as well, and with both of them there is the fact that they sit on a pool of supporters that are not wholly theirs and who are very hungry people. and who are not under control and command. and they have to negotiate constantly with their own supporters as well. long subject i won't go into. but there are things to work with -- they aren't so finished that you can say it's proven. ghani is -- under ghani control you have prosecution of senior level people. and talked about investigations after lot more. now he is really leaning forward with this public discussion of the additional prosecutions. if those go forward, even if somewhat perfectly and not all of them, that will be an important milestone. if he doesn't, if those turn out to be hollow words and he can't summon the political will to carry through, then it's going to be a long step backward for thinks credibility. we are still a little progress of things that are good, but some that have to deliver still. >> i'm glad you pointed thought is beyond the security piece. because this puts the developments of international power at forefront. maybe the first one that has done that and maybe it'll be adopted. but with the military clearly playing a supporting role in politics and diplomacy upfront, that's how we will be successful. >> and back, yes. >> paul with u.s. news and world report. there is a 3-day review from the pentagon due next week about how it is planning it fight isis. pending upon confirm that afghanistan will be included among the many regions. i wonder if there are any particular point you will look for or if there are any immediate reaction you are looking for from the white house. and the white house made no qualms about staffing up its foreign policy app rattiaratus. i wonder if you know if there is any heavy military policy and what might that look like? >> well generals come in all types. and i know general mcmaster well, as everyone else up here does. knew general mattis a little bit when he was running around iraq and i was intercepting with him. these people are of broad vision. they are not knuckle-draggers. and i would give them -- we had three general offices who were secretaries of state. george marshal. k colin powell, hague was a disaster. that means you can't make some broad generalization. listening to npr this morning, it misracharacterized hr's books a book criticizing their interference in military matter. in fact, the dereliction of duty to which that book speaks is the military not professionally standing up to argue for its own position. not to have its own position, necessarily. but to have the professional duty to argue its side. he may get to try that on. but in any e,