American strategy in Afghanistan is built around an army of advisors. They are the key to every initiative and program here and they are everywhere, from the very top of the government in Kabul building ministries and infrastructure, all the way down to the districts building bridges and roads, to the battlefields in Helmand and Kandahar building effective Afghan fighting forces. There are thousands of them scattered across the country and, due to the increased emphasis Afghanistan is getting from the US government, thousands more are on the way. Officially they are known as mentors or “partners” but their principal duty is to offer advice and assistance to their Afghan counterparts. And the Afghans are eagerly awaiting the arrival of their new advisors. In fact, nothing pleases Afghan officials as much as getting new advisors fresh off the plane, eager to save Afghanistan. The new advisors hit the ground ready and willing to support their Afghan counterparts in any way possible and the Afghans make sure the possibilities are endless.

They come from all branches of service-Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines- and civilians as well as officers from Europe, Canada and Asia. They bring a wealth of experience and expertise in a variety of fields. They are fully prepared to do post graduate work with the Afghans but soon discover that their counterparts are stuck somewhere between elementary and junior high school. However, most quickly get over this initial reality check and press on. After all, this is Afghanistan, and a few bumps in the road are to be expected, right? Thirty years of war, and all that, can explain a lot of short comings and the Afghans are only too quick to point out all their shortcomings-Afghanistan is a poor country; the Russians were bad, the Taliban were bad, everything is broken, we need everything and you, my new advisor/mentor/savior/partner must help me!

Conventional wisdom has always held that it will take time and money to save Afghanistan. What this really means is the advisors supply the money and the Afghans provide the time. We now have all the ingredients for an informal agreement that will be the foundation of this relationship until the advisor leaves-the advisors want to use as little time as possible and the Afghans want to use as much time as possible. Time is critically important to the advisors because they have so little of it, usually only a year. The Afghans, on the other hand, have tons of it, hundreds of years in fact. Time is unimportant to them but money is in short supply so, being pragmatic, they have altered the conventional wisdom of time and money to time is money. The longer the Afghans need help, the longer the advisors will stay. The longer the advisors stay the more money they will spend. Of course, the relationship is never specifically framed this way because that would be bad form on the part of both parties but it is always there, just below the surface.

With each new crop of advisors there are lots of new ideas. The Afghans love new ideas because they always evolve into new programs employing lots of Afghans. Once a program is created, it takes on a life of its own and will survive several generations of advisors. Often, the same idea is recycled several times under a new name and a new sponsor.

The Afghans have carefully studied the life span of an advisor in Afghanistan and have worked out several methods of extracting the greatest amount of money and equipment in the shortest possible time. It all starts with the first meeting over tea, preferably three cups. The Afghan will tell the advisor how delighted and honored he is to have a new counterpart. He will then proceed to tell the advisor that his predecessor was a good, dedicated, hard working professional who really tried but, well, wasn’t quite able to deliver whatever it is the Afghan official desperately needs to save his country.

This is the honeymoon phase of the relationship. The advisor leaves this initial meeting with a list of needs, a fire in his belly and a burning in his brain. He is filled with an inspired sense of purpose. He will not, cannot, fail! Afghanistan needs him and he will deliver! And he does. He satisfies the initial list of needs. And the next. And the next. He has now entered the “Dances with Wolves” stage, also known as “going native.” Often, he will start speaking broken phrases of Dari, wear the traditional Afghan man-scarf and maybe even the distinctive Masood hat. He is bonding with his Afghan brother and this is the most productive phase for the Afghan. The goal is to keep the advisor in this phase as long as possible. The irony is that all of the very qualities that make for a great advisor-initiative, passion, positive attitude, dedication, and strong will to succeed-also makes him vulnerable to the slow roll.

But there are always more requests, more needs, more lists. He now starts to question if he will be able to save Afghanistan after all. When he gets here, he is in the questioning phase. Slowly, over several months, he enters the inevitable disillusionment phase where he must confront the truth that he was used. Now, as the end of his yearlong tour approaches, he is filled with many emotions and they are all bad-anger, disappointment, resentment, guilt. The Afghan, on the other hand, is already looking past our hero to his replacement who will be arriving soon. When this happens, the Afghan resets the clock to zero and the cycle will repeat itself.

You may well ask how could this be happening to the coalition forces with eight years experience in Afghanistan trying to save the country? The hard truth is we don’t have eight years experience here; we have one year’s experience multiplied eight times and, while the math works, it’s really not the same. Each year’s class of advisors basically starts over and the Afghans have learned to exploit this weakness. With no clear vision of what victory will look like, victory becomes difficult to visualize and impossible to achieve.

To a large degree, the coalition has created the conditions that lead to this. By being overly sensitive to the possibility of appearing heavy handed in dealing with the Afghan government, the coalition has adopted the mantra of “Afghan solutions to Afghan Problems,” along with “Afghans in the Lead.” This briefs well and sounds good at a press conference. For the tiny percentage of Afghans fortunate enough to rate a coalition advisor, this is a wonderful attitude to adopt. President Karzai heartily approves. However, for the rest of the country, mired in poverty and despair, stuck somewhere between the 7th and 19th century, life goes on as before; nothing changes. In the meantime, the senior leadership of the coalition is busy preparing briefings and information papers that paint a very rosy picture of what the future will look like, long after their replacements have safely arrived in country.