Missionaries of Modernity: Advisory Missions and the Struggle for Hegemony in Afghanistan and Beyond/A State Built on Sand: How Opium Undermined Afghanistan

• Autores: Robert Nicholson
• Localización: Middle East Journal, ISSN 0026-3141, Vol. 71, Nº. 2, 2017, págs. 309-312
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Over many decades and countries, advisers, uninformed about host country culture and history, often lamented how efficiency and merit lost out to "corruption," even as host rulers valued patronage distribution and political appointments as essential statebuilding tools. CSTC-A also depends heavily on contracted civilian police mentors for the Afghan police training effort, though ironically those contractors are employed by the State Department and ultimately accountable to that agency rather than the military.4 While Missionaries of Modernity and A State Built on Sand both offer multiple arguments and insights, in broad summary the former's chapters suggest national advisory "templates" of intervention as deployed in Afghanistan remain structurally and ideologically convenient for powerful political actors and will continue to be deployed as advisory experiences such as Afghanistan are rationalized as acceptable risks.