For three and a half years, the United States has been engaged with the Afghan people in an ambitious program of state-building. Afghans have a strong sense of national identity, despite their ethnic diversity. The key task has been to establish a legitimate political process and rebuild state institutions. As the president's special envoy and as ambassador to Afghanistan during the past 17 months, I have seen that a nation wracked by a quarter century of occupation and internal conflict can lay the foundation upon which a democratic society can be constructed.

This success was not expected. Many observers too readily accepted caricatures of Afghanistan as an ungovernable tribal society whose instability could only be managed, not resolved. They said that a society with high levels of illiteracy and ethnic and sectarian cleavages could not become democratic. Some went so far as to characterize Afghan society, wrongly, as given to extremism and hostile to modernity. In their view, if democracy was ever to come to Afghanistan, it could only be at a much later time in its development.

Why have we seen this success? While the circumstances of every country are unique and Afghanistan cannot serve as a simplistic template for other countries, there are a number of factors that have contributed to success. First, the president's initiative to push forward the frontiers of freedom politically--and to support those in the Greater Middle East who seek to transform the region--is premised on the belief that the ideals of democracy, popular sovereignty, individual rights and the rule of law are universal. The experience of Afghanistan validates this view.

Second, Afghanistan is succeeding because the United States has pursued an enlightened, hands-on approach that responded to the deep aspirations of the Afghan people for normalcy, development and democracy. We recognized this yearning of the people and worked with it to make political progress. To do so, the United States conducted itself as a liberator, not an occupier. We maintained an appropriate military footprint; pursued an approach that balanced and integrated the use of our political, economic and military instruments of power; worked closely with local leaders with genuine roots in the society on a joint political-military-economic strategy; adopted a flexible multilateral approach supported by a robust U.S. program; and shaped the conduct of neighbors and did not accept the existence of sanctuaries for the armed opposition.

Even as we continue to help Afghanistan, it is useful to consider ten specific lessons that help explain what has worked so far.

1) Any effort to build the post-war order must be based on a fundamental understanding of the aspirations or political center of gravity of a newly liberated society and must be implemented by civilian and military leaders who know how to align the United States with those goals.

After the fall of the Taliban, the Afghan people had a profound wish to rejoin the world community and embrace democratization and modernity. They based this aspiration on aspects of their self-identity and recent history. Afghans' self-conception is of citizens of a nation that once gave rise to great empires based not just on the strength of their armies, but also on the quality of their culture, learning and arts. With respect to the modern period, many view the fifty years before the communist coup in April 1978 as a golden age, one in which they enjoyed peace, made slow but steady material progress, and saw their country take steps toward instituting a constitutional monarchy with real powers in Parliament. For Afghans, this is a narrative that they wish to resume.

The test for U.S. policy in Afghanistan, as in any other post-conflict setting, is how quickly and solidly we can help the people and their leaders build a political order that is legitimate by their terms and based on their traditions and history.

2) If U.S. military forces are used to effect regime change or are deployed to stabilize a country after a regime has been toppled by internal forces, it is vital for the United States to position itself as an ally, not a conqueror or occupier, and to ensure that indigenous leaders take ownership of the new order.

In Afghanistan, we won the war in coalition with Afghans. American power and Afghan forces were both essential to this victory. The fact that the Afghans played a key role in their own liberation gave them a sense of dignity and ownership of their destiny. Afghans in the north and the south were active participants in, not passive recipients of, the actions needed to free their country from an extremist and terrorist regime.

At the same time, the United States and the international community supported a political process to create an interim regime to be installed in Kabul immediately after the military victory. This was the first step in creating a legitimate government that would be accepted by the Afghan people. The process is well known. Even before the first air strikes took place, the United States was in talks with various Afghan groups about the shape of this process. It culminated in the Bonn Conference, where the major anti-Taliban political groups came together under UN auspices and agreed to an interim government that was sworn in just over two weeks later in Kabul. The Bonn Agreement also set in motion the process to hold the Emergency Loya Jirga to legitimize the interim government, the Constitutional Loya Jirga to adopt a new governing charter, and national elections to select a president and a parliament. This roadmap gave the Afghan people confidence that this staged process would lead to an ever more representative government.

Many observers have been critical of the U.S. insistence that elections be held on a fast timeline. They argued that conditions were not yet right and that warlords and commanders still had too much influence to ensure a free and fair process. I took a different view. I believed that warlords and potential spoilers should be exposed as soon as possible to the popular will. The people have been determined to take back their country from extremists and warlords. Furthermore, enough progress had been made in disarming warlord militias that the people concluded that the era of warlordism was coming to an end. Moreover, provided that basic measures such as secret ballots are taken, Afghans as a rule are difficult to coerce.

In this context, the loya jirgas and elections of the Bonn Process served a catalytic role. When confronted by the people at these key events, the potential spoilers almost visibly shrunk back, cognizant of their own political illegitimacy. Through each stage of the Bonn Process, the people have gained increasing confidence and the spoilers have steadily lost ground, creating a virtuous cycle that the international community can support without unduly interfering in Afghan politics. This approach is working. However, we must recognize that enabling the Afghans to make incremental progress by these means takes more time than taking a direct hand. The payoff will be more stable and enduring if the Afghans themselves work through this process.

As a result, Americans have been seen as a catalyst for liberation, and as a positive and helpful force, not a predatory foreign power intent on ruling Afghanistan.

3) Intensive political and diplomatic engagement with national leaders is needed to craft a national compact among competing groups and to form a partnership to execute a mutually agreed strategy for reconstruction.

To set a post-conflict country on the right trajectory requires a hands-on approach. The influence of the United States in such settings is immense, particularly in working with credible local leaders or in building up the credibility of such leaders. In Afghanistan, the United States has been careful not to use its power to impose American-made solutions. Instead, the United States has used its influence to help Afghan leaders agree on Afghan solutions to Afghan challenges.

This has meant that the United States has needed to have relationships with all Afghan factions who accepted the political process--including those we felt might be potential spoilers. From the beginning, it was essential that Americans be seen as honest brokers. This has allowed us to help move the process along. As I have often told my Afghan friends, "You have agreed among yourselves through the Bonn Process that you wish to create a moderate and democratic Afghanistan. The United States endorses your goal. In order to achieve that goal, you have agreed that certain steps have to be taken, including the building of a single national army, the demobilizing of private militias, and so forth. If you can get there on your own, this is great, and we applaud you. However, if you cannot get there on your own, failure is not an option--and we are here to help." From this posture, we have worked with the Afghans to come to an agreement on how to surmount their challenges.

For example, a key issue in 2003 was the need to reform the Afghan Ministry of Defense to reflect the country's ethnic and political diversity. One faction controlled the ministry, but all factions agreed as part of the Bonn Process that a single national army needed to be formed. The United States took on the role of serving as the lead nation in building the army. However, we insisted that the reform of the Ministry of Defense be a key part of the process. Afghans had difficulty agreeing on such reform themselves. As a result, the United States worked with President Hamid Karzai, the leadership of the ministry, and other key leaders to establish a process that led to the reappointment of all of the personnel in the ministry, starting with the most senior positions, based on the principles of ethnic and political balance and professional qualifications.

This approach has involved an unglamorous process that moved through several stages and required constant adjustments to the road map. It has required us to be willing to work continually to reduce mistrust and improve communication among factions. On sensitive issues, such as increasing ethnic balance in the government or curbing the influence of warlords, it has required living with ambiguity. We have proceeded through a series of moves that did not achieve the ideal outcome all at once, but that steadily moved the society in the right direction. We have been careful not to overreach. This approach has also required us to use American influence to hold individual leaders to their word. In this manner, we have been helpful to Afghans who are seeking to improve their country, without risking instability by pushing for too much change at any one time. We are interested in enduring change that takes place without endangering stability, not rapid change that might provide instant gratification of our hopes but that destabilizes the country and creates more problems than we had before.

This process has been focused on resolving sources of instability in Afghanistan. First, it involved helping Afghans agree on new rules of the game. Political power would be won not through private militias, but by elections. The presence and engagement of the United States encouraged ordinary Afghans to believe in the credibility of this process, and checked or restrained potential troublemakers whose power was rooted in the old order. Second, it has focused on dismantling the infrastructure of civil war--the militias themselves. We helped broker an agreement that has resulted in the cantonment of 97 percent of heavy weapons held by militia leaders with the national army and the disarmament of about 75 percent of the fighters in formal militias. Third, it involved accelerating the development of national institutions, particularly the army and police. Fourth, even as the United States stepped up the coalition's efforts against the Taliban insurgency, we kept the door open for individuals who were fighting the new government but had not committed crimes themselves to give up their fight and reconcile. Fifth, we invested major resources in improving the prospects of the Afghan people, thereby validating their belief in democratic institutions.

4) The United States must size and configure its footprint to avoid creating unnecessary friction or over-reliance on any one instrument of policy.

A frequent criticism of the international community's military presence in Afghanistan has been that it was too small. Though partly valid early on, this point obscures another equally valid one: Too large a military presence can have unintended consequences, imperiling the overall mission. For any country, the presence of foreign troops is profoundly unnatural. It can lead to the foreign force being drawn into conflicts at the local level or to frictions that inadvertently alienate the people. Also, the greater the presence of our military forces, the greater the danger that we will try to solve all of Afghanistan's problems ourselves and divert resources and focus from the main task: enabling the development of Afghan institutions and capabilities as rapidly as possible. In other post-conflict situations, too large a foreign military presence has resulted in an unhealthy dependency that leads local security and other capabilities to atrophy or fail to develop. The right amount of international security presence can promote political engagement by creating an environment that allows all sides to engage in dialogue internally.

Wise use of security forces is crucial, for it is important to avoid excessive reliance on any one instrument of policy. Because of the effectiveness of the U.S. armed forces, many commentators reflexively urged us to turn to the military to solve every problem in post-conflict situations in Afghanistan. Taking this approach is a mistake. Though we should never rule out the use of the military instrument if necessary and appropriate, this habit of mind underestimates what can be achieved--and what can be achieved better--by the patient but determined and combined use of other instruments, including diplomacy, economic incentives and political engagement.

At the end of the day, the leaders and factions of any country must come to terms with each other--to reach an agreement on the rules by which power and influence will be distributed. This is a goal that will be achieved in a more lasting way if it is reached politically, not imposed by force from without. In Afghanistan, the United States, by virtue of its power and the desire of local leaders and factions to have close ties to us, is in a strong position to assist in resolving contentious issues through political means.

5) Post-conflict reconstruction involves the reconstitution of a country's political elite. Success depends on the emergence of an elite that has roots in the society and the vision and capability to build a new and better political order.

In Afghanistan we have faced a challenging situation in which we are helping a country go through a transition from an era when leadership was based on command of armed groups to a period when leaders must respond to popular aspirations and deliver social and economic results.

When I speak publicly and privately to Afghan leaders, I often recite a checklist of the necessary conditions for such success. They include a democratic government, an enlightened civil society, a free press, security forces responsive to legitimate political authority, the rule of law, respect for minority rights, a free-market economy and other key requirements. This list creates an imposing agenda for a country that has had all its institutions destroyed by war and extremism during the past quarter century. It also highlights the fact that a key challenge is finding Afghans who can rebuild and run such institutions. Afghanistan is not without the people needed to meet this challenge--but they are scarce in comparison to the demand. Rapidly building up Afghan human capital--both through aggressive training programs and enabling the return of elements of the Afghan diaspora--is essential.

This has required a strategy to curb warlordism. We worked with President Karzai to persuade major regional leaders to give up their arms in exchange for an opportunity to become legitimate political actors, either through appointments to new positions or through entry into electoral politics. This was a difficult, contentious and sometimes risky process that combined assertion through the shadow effect of military power and negotiation by the national government, supported by the international community. Those who commanded private militias were persuaded to change their behavior if they wished to make the transition to the new era. At the same time, we made it clear that those who conduct themselves as warlords will not have a position of power and prestige in the new Afghanistan. The objective was to make the elites from the period of civil war into stakeholders in the new order, as well as to train and empower new elites. Though this has been a difficult transition, it has been carried out largely by political means, and it has seen considerable success.

6) Effective communication is vital to the success of any reconstruction program.

In Afghanistan, the U.S. mission has energetically reached out to the Afghan people to explain our policies. The key is to explain--persistently and consistently--our vision and goals and why we are doing what we are doing in every main line of our activities.

I have granted dozens of interviews and routinely met with local Afghan media, and I have given scores of speeches at public events. In addition, the U.S. mission initiated a series of radio addresses to the Afghan people in which I described the U.S. program to accelerate progress in Afghanistan, the U.S. vision for its partnership with the Afghan people, and the U.S. policy toward disarming militias and assisting Afghanistan's democratic transition. These speeches, as well as my local media appearances, were conducted in Dari. We recorded my radio addresses on CDs and distributed them to all Afghan government and private radio stations, which gave them a nationwide airing. Many Afghans have told me that our communications effort has played an important role in creating both hope and realistic expectations among the people. At the same time, I met widely with provincial and local leaders to communicate U.S. policy through the traditional networks of Afghan social leaders.

It is essential not just to talk with elites, but also to engage in a political dialogue with the entire nation we are trying to help. The importance was evident with respect to the issue of disarming militias, which many Afghans told me was the top priority for ordinary civilians. This problem could not be solved overnight, particularly because we had to train a new army and police force to fill the vacuum if militias were to be disarmed. In my radio address on this subject, I explained the process that we were pursuing to negotiate disarmament and build new security forces. Afghans told me that this explanation of our approach resulted in greater patience. It also won us greater credibility as Afghans watched their government and the international community deliver as promised.

7) In post-conflict settings, the United States should utilize a flexible, multilateral model backed up by an energetic and robust American policy and program.

Many pundits create a false dichotomy between a go-it-alone, unilateral U.S. policy and a UN-driven, multilateral approach. In fact, neither variant in the extreme is ever truly employed. The question then becomes how to achieve our strategic objective by simultaneously taking advantage of American power and mobilizing maximum contributions from other players.

The approach we have taken in Afghanistan has worked well. We have derived a great advantage from giving the UN the central role for organizing the international effort to help Afghanistan. In this way, Afghans feel that the world has come to help their country, and they are not put in a position where they feel overwhelmed by American power, as almost any small nation in their position would if every important issue were channeled exclusively into bilateral interaction with the United States. Moreover, the UN lead allows countries that would not participate in a U.S.-led structure to bring their resources and other contributions to bear. Finally, we have been fortunate to have two exceptional UN special representatives, Lakhdar Brahimi and Jean Arnault, with whom we continually coordinate and consult.

However, even in this structure there is no substitute for U.S. power and resources. These must be utilized to guarantee the achievement of every objective essential to the success of the overall mission. We have coaxed other countries to take a greater role and pressed other donors for larger contributions in never-ending rounds of international tin-cupping. However, there are certain outcomes--a strong national army, an effective police force and others--that the United States must at the end of the day be willing to deliver with its own efforts if necessary. In settings like Afghanistan, this is the burden of being the world's only superpower.

8) If neighboring countries can help or harm our effort, the United States should engage them and shape their conduct to the extent possible, even if we have deep differences with those countries.

Our objective in Afghanistan is to create a political and geopolitical beachhead--a moderate and democratic state in a turbulent and unstable region. To succeed requires us to pursue a regional strategy that persuades and induces neighboring states to stand down from their policies of the past two decades. During this period, they organized and armed clients to fight for control over Afghanistan, seeking to dominate the country's strategic position. None ultimately succeeded in its imperial designs, but the toll for the Afghan people was enormous: more than a million dead and more than five million refugees forced to flee. Though the policies of neighboring states continue to pose challenges, the lesson is that this key aspect of solving the puzzle of Afghanistan's stability cannot be slighted or ignored.

First, we have to help the leaders of regional powers shift away from a zero-sum mindset of geopolitical rivalry and empire. It took two world wars to cure major west European powers of the pursuit of grand designs for regional or imperial conquest. In the Greater Middle East, many powers focus principally on gaining advantage over their rivals, rather than on finding solutions that serve the interests of all key players. They place too much value on the ephemeral gains to be won through geopolitical competition rather than on the enduring value of developing the human and economic capital of their own societies and seeking the benefits of trade and economic cooperation. We need to help this important region get through this dangerous phase of its development as quickly as possible.

Regarding our efforts in Afghanistan, this means that we must bring each regional power to the point where its leaders accept the fact that their interests are better served by a stable, independent and prosperous Afghanistan, an outcome that opens the way to a wider economic transformation of the region. They also must come to see that the worst outcome is a return to proxy competition, a game that exacts an enormous cost in blood and treasure, and could result in a rival coming to dominate Afghanistan and using it as a base of operations to threaten its competitors. Moreover, all the major powers would benefit from the restoration of the historic Afghan land bridge connecting the markets of Central Asia, South Asia and southwest Asia--a region with a collective and growing GDP of $4 trillion. There is a strong case to be made that each country would benefit more from the prosperity derived from trade than from seeking to dominate its neighbors.

Second, to effect this shift in the calculations of regional powers, we need to persuade their leaders that the United States is unalterably committed to success in Afghanistan. If the leaders of these countries are uncertain about the strength of our commitment to stay the course, they are likely to hedge against the possibility that we will pull out. In Afghanistan, this means that they will maintain relations with clients or factions that would give them an instrument for violent proxy competition after an American disengagement. Their support for these groups can hamper our effort to enable the Afghans to stabilize and rebuild their country. The challenge is finding ways to effectively signal our commitment, through both words and deeds, to leaders who are convinced of our short attention span.

Third, we must motivate or incentivize the leaders of regional powers to desist from destabilizing policies. Regarding Afghanistan, this has meant calling neighboring powers to account for their actions. It is best if private interventions achieve the desired effect, but public statements may sometimes be necessary. The United States should also be willing to develop ties with interest groups, particularly in the business sector, that might pressure national leaders to reduce instability in order to stimulate greater trade. Trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan has increased to $1 billion--dwarfing the level achieved during the Taliban regime--and industries and businesses throughout Pakistan are primary beneficiaries. The challenge of shaping the conduct of neighbors continues, and it requires our engagement and attention.

9) A closely integrated civil-military structure and set of policies and programs are the best way to achieve success.

The case of Afghanistan has also shown that close, civil-military cooperation results in major benefits. In the recent presidential election, an extraordinary degree of civil-military integration was achieved, an effort led by the U.S. mission but supported by coalition planning and security forces. For example, coalition forces played a vital role even in providing security for movements of ballots--and sometimes moved the ballots themselves.

As part of a major initiative to accelerate progress in June 2003, the United States adopted an integrated civil-military action plan. The offices of the chief of mission and the commanding general of the Combined Forces Command for Afghanistan were co-located in the U.S. embassy in Kabul. The U.S. mission undertook a number of organizational innovations to enable its programs, including the creation of the Afghanistan Reconstruction Group, composed of functional experts in key reconstruction areas, and the Embassy Interagency Planning Group, a military-staffed cell that tracks progress against clear metrics. In the field, military-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams contained embedded personnel from the State Department, the U.S. Agency for International Development and other civilian agencies. At the headquarters level, a special coordination process to integrate and synchronize civilian and military programs has been put in place. These innovations are yielding good returns.

All who have been involved in Afghanistan policy in this period have been impressed by what this cooperation has achieved. The military mission--defeating terrorists and insurgents--has been supported by the political process to build the legitimacy of the Afghan government and civilian-led programs such as police training. Efforts of civilian agencies--helping Afghans complete their democratic transition and reconstructing the economy, among others--have been supported by coalition military operations and progress toward establishing a national army. This experience should be a model for such efforts going forward, both in Afghanistan and other post-conflict situations.

10) Success requires the U.S. government to provide adequate resources and to find more efficient ways to operate.

In 2002, all major players in Afghanistan--the UN, the United States and even the Afghan leadership--fundamentally underestimated the resource requirements for rebuilding the country. The United States, as well as other donors, adjusted their programs upward in 2003 and 2004, with more than $4.5 billion pledged for fiscal year 2004 at the Berlin donors conference in February 2003. Looking forward, it will take annual assistance at that level or higher for five to seven years to achieve our goals. This is why the administration has requested from Congress more than $5 billion in security and economic assistance for the current fiscal year.

Other adjustments are also needed. The United States and other countries that engage in post-conflict reconstruction need to streamline their internal operations. We have to be able to hit the ground running because in the aftermath of war a golden opportunity exists to lay the foundation for new institutions before negative trends, such as the rise of organized crime, begin to take hold. In Afghanistan, for example, we are in a race between the building of the legal economy and the rise of the illegal drug economy. Also, as Afghans complete their democratic transition, the clock will start running on whether the new political order can deliver results in terms of quality of life of the people. To beat the clock, we must work as quickly as possible to set the conditions needed for private-sector growth, such as making electricity and capital available nationwide and establishing greater rule of law. We must also learn to move forward quickly on the twin tracks of reconstruction, providing immediate results and building up local capacity for the long term. If our often cumbersome contracting and other bureaucratic processes are too slow, we will find that the clock will run out, the people will become disillusioned and the Afghan democratic experiment could be imperiled.

We define success as an Afghanistan that can stand on its own feet, providing security, effective democratic governance and opportunities for Afghan families to earn their own livelihoods. While we should seek an enduring partnership with Afghanistan to advance our common strategic, political and economic interests, we wish to see the Afghan people assume responsibility for their own national development as soon as possible. Afghans share this perspective. If success in Afghanistan is a ten-mile journey, we have just passed the fourth milestone. If we maintain our present pace in coming years, the case of Afghanistan will show that we can help a nation lay the foundation for sustainable institutions that support our common interests and accord with U.S. values.