Hard Lessons

July 9, 2014

From Maxwell Perspective...

Hard Lessons

Post-conflict project veteran Deborah Alexander led a panel discussion of Afghanistan at Maxwell’s new home in D.C.

• View the entire Ballots, Bucks, and Boots presentation
• View Deborah Alexander’s response to receiving the Spirit of Public Service Award.
• See more photos of the April 2 event in Washington, D.C.
Early in their panel discussion of post-conflict operations in Afghanistan, Anthony Cordesman, Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), turned to Deborah Alexander ’82 MSSc/’95 PhD (SSc), a long-time State Department officer with significant experience in Afghanistan, and asked her for the lessons learned there.

“In my line of work,” Alexander responded, “we don’t talk about ‘lessons learned’ anymore. We talk about ‘lessons identified’” — drawing a chuckle of recognition from the nearly 300 audience members on hand — “knowing that generations don’t always learn the lessons from the past.”

Speakers at the panel on post-conflict reconstruction included (top, l-r) Maxwell faculty member Renée de Nevers, alumna and long-time State Department staffer in Afghanistan Deborah Alexander, and CSIS’s Anthony Cordesman.

Such was the tone of “Ballots, Bucks, and Boots: Post-Conflict Lessons from Afghanistan,” a policy discussion sponsored by Maxwell and held on April 2 at CSIS headquarters in Washington — which, since January, have served also as Maxwell’s home in D.C. Alexander, Cordesman, and the event’s third speaker, faculty member Renée de Nevers, offered measured, sometimes paradoxical assessments of America’s role and legacy in Afghanistan.

Cordesman, for example, described the evening’s topic as “a problem we sometimes call post-conflict reconstruction. And the problem, of course, is in almost every case it isn’t post-conflict.” He then portrayed how profoundly America attempted to re-engineer public institutions in Afghanistan, weighing those aspirations against Kofi Annan’s observation that half of all post-conflict efforts fail. De Nevers opened with the coy and ironic notion that post-conflict reconstruction depends on simply avoiding three mistakes: “Don’t do too much. Don’t do too little. And don’t do the wrong things.” The presenters spent nearly an hour then untangling the murky lessons of Afghanistan, with policy perspectives often informed by Alexander’s nine years on the ground there. An audience Q&A followed.

“Generations don’t always learn the lessons from the past.”
— Deborah Alexander

At the end of the evening, Alexander (left, with Maxwell political scientist Kristi Andersen), received the School’s Spirit of Public Service Award.

“Ballots, Bucks, and Boots” was also the first major public event Maxwell had held at CSIS since setting up operations there. Dean James Steinberg used the moment to review the School’s history in D.C. — this year marks the 20th and 33rd anniversaries of undergrad and graduate IR programs there, respectively — and to describe Maxwell/CSIS collaborations already under way. “There’s a long tradition of Maxwell being here in Washington,” he said, “but I think you’ll share my view that this helps bring it to a new level.”

The festivities ended with the surprise presentation of Maxwell’s Spirit of Public Service Award to Alexander by her PhD advisor, political scientist Kristi Andersen. Alexander reflected on Maxwell’s place in her life.

“There’s probably not a day goes by . . . I have not thought about my work in Syracuse and my education at Maxwell,” she said.

Alexander highlighted her pursuit of the interdisciplinary social science degree. “Maxwell provided a place for me where I didn’t have to make a choice and I could do what I love. I could continue to be a practitioner and also be able to ask the large questions about civic engagement and citizenship and democracy and women’s participation. I think often of those days.”

— Dana Cooke