WORLD BRIDGE BLOG

In the midst of the Obama administration's policy review on Afghanistan a new word was born: Afpak, meaning Afghanistan and Pakistan. Strategists want to encourage the executors of strategy and policy to think of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a unified theater of operations. The border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan demands a unified approach if NATO and the U.S. are to defeat the Taliban.  So, Afpak it is.  

Linguists call this type of word a neologism or a portmanteau: breakfast + lunch = brunch; smoke + fog = smog, and so on.  And, although this type of strategic thinking isn't new (during World War II General Joseph Stillwell commanded forces in the CBI - China, Burma, India theater), thankfully, the development of portmanteaux in the policy realm is a relatively new phenomenon or we might have a word like Churmandia in our lexicon.  

So now that President Obama's Special Envoy to Sudan, General (ret.) Scott Gration has returned from his first visit to Sudan, I wonder if the administration is considering another portmanteau: Charfur, for Chad and Darfur. The war in western Sudan, having gone on longer now than the United States' engagement in World War II, isn't confined to Darfur. Darfurian rebels keen to stop the genocide committed by Sudanese forces and their associated militias, known as the Janjaweed, gain sanctuary and logistics support in neighboring Chad in return for helping secure the regime of President Idriss Deby. Chadian rebels intent on regime change in N'Djamena benefit from Sudanese government-provided safe havens and supplies in Darfur. Tribal homelands - dars - overlap the international border between the two nations muddying any sense of nationalist loyalty tribesmen might develop.  

Inside the Department of State, the office tasked with developing and monitoring policy on Sudan -- known as the Sudan Programs Group, or SPG -- sits alone, apart from any other sub-regional office. The Sudan desk was once part of the Office of East African Affairs, but SPG split of a few years ago when the workload required a significant increase in the number of staffers. Sudan is a hugely complex state engulfed in multiple complex crises: the implementation of the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between north and south Sudan, the war in Darfur and the two-million displaced it has created, the often overlooked Eastern Sudan Peace Agreement that ended fighting between the Eastern Front and the Government, two huge United Nations Missions, volatility in the Three Areas, cooperation with the United States in the war on terror, the indictment of President Omer al Bashir for war crimes by the ICC, the list goes on.  So having a separate office to oversee USG initiatives in Sudan seems logical.  

Until, that is, the war in Darfur spreads to Chad and the Central African Republic. At this point, a single focus office isn't enough. When the problem is regional, the policy prescriptions should also be regional. This is what the National Security Council staff realized just before they created the word Afpak.  

Mssrs Deby and Bashir have signed at least six agreements to stop supporting rebel groups. None of them have been effective. In 2008 Chadian rebels reached N'Djamena and Sudanese rebels reached Khartoum. Despite the presence of United Nations Peacekeepers in Darfur and Chad, the fighting goes on, numbers of refugees and internally displaced persons grow, and people die.

Perhaps it is time the Department took a more regional approach.  Without getting too far into the weeds, one idea would be to move a few Chad experts and the Chad desk officer onto the staff of the SPG.  Further, and adding an additional level of complexity, the United Nations missions in Chad and Darfur should be conjoined or at a minimum have their mandates harmonized to include exchange of liaison officers, linked communications networks and cross-border authority. And finally, the war is also spreading into the Central African Republic, so that nation's interests and security must be part of any calculus. One can only imagine the portmanteaux to follow.  

April 20, 2009 Update:
The Sudan Programs Group is now called the Office of the United States Special Envoy to Sudan and uses the office symbol S/USSES.